I'd decided to keep out of this until now but... oh well.
I could not agree more with Vivian's point, though it's certainly not a problem limited to poorer countries and institutions. We're expected collectively to sign our copyright over to publishers for nothing, to do their quality control for them for nothing, some of us to edit their journals for nothing... and then our institutions are charged sky-high fees for us to access the fruits of our own collective toil. It's a complete scam. I think we need to make a distinction between small and/or academic publishers and the big commercial players: it's our moral imperative to support the former, as Matthew pointed out with the Journal of the Polynesian Society, but I find it very hard to muster sympathy for the likes of Elsevier, whose business model is pure rent seeking. And I absolutely refuse to feel guilty for the odd PDF forwarded on to colleagues in Serbia or wherever who don't have access. The publisher loses nothing from this - if they want to profit from a market then they shouldn't price themselves out of it. As a Western European researcher who takes full advantage of the much more enlightened Open Access policies active in much of Eastern Europe (e.g. google Scindeks or Hrcak) it's pretty much a moral obligation.
All that being said, it is of course in all of our interests to avoid the ire of the big publishers' lawyers. And for that reason, I think a better (if partial) solution than simply continuing to pass a few PDFs around below the radar is for those of us who can to try and publish as much of our research as possible as Open Access, whether 'gold' or 'green'. I know a lot of people are wary of specialist OA publishers (with good reason - there's are some proper cowboys out there) but if even the thoroughly respectable PLoS isn't your cup of tea then most of the big-name conventional journals now offer a gold OA option for a fee. A lot of universities (especially in the UK) have funds set aside to cover these fees, often underused - UCL agreed to cover the full cost of making our forthcoming Antiquity article Open Access within an hour of being asked, because they get bizarrely few requests. Obviously not everyone has access to such funds, but those of us who do should use them wherever possible. For those who don't, there's also the green OA option, which usually means putting a post-corrections but pre-typesetting version in your institutional archive, freely accessible to the public after an embargo period. For that matter, PLoS ONE actually lets authors specify how much they can afford for gold OA, potentially down to $0, in a field that isn't read until after peer review - so in theory no-one is priced out.
Now I recognise that this isn't always practical, especially for books, and I'm not trying to be some kind of puritan - I personally have a couple of Springer projects in the works because they were just opportunities too good to refuse, and a string of closed-access papers before that. But if we're serious about sharing our work more fairly WITHOUT infringing copyright then the least we can do is seriously consider the OA option whenever we get a journal paper accepted. I certainly intend to do so from now on.
The OA mandates being introduced for work funded by the US government, the EU, and now the Research Councils in the UK are all very positive steps in this direction (I have some misgivings about RCUK's implementation, but that's another story) but I do suspect "the West" is a bit behind on this stuff - perhaps because we host most of the big publishers, who seem coincidentally to be on very good terms with our politicians? I was very interested to hear from Vivian about the law on copyright in Argentina - it obviously doesn't imply OA per se, but there's surely a lot to be said about authors retaining some control. For one thing, they benefit from sharing research freely, while traditional publishers obviously benefit from keeping access limited.
Apologies for the morning lecture and potential opening of a can of worms, but if we're talking copyright then OA is surely the elephant in the room.
Best,
David
On 17 Oct 2013, at 00:44, "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Let me introduce to you another point of view on the subject. And please,
> do excuse me for my English. I imagine that with a little effort it could
> be understood.
>
> First, I am paid for the Argentinean government to do research in Argentina
> (a Third World country where resources did not abound). But when I publish
> with the great commercial publishers they request me to confer them my
> copyrights. When my country buys a license to these same giants, they
> charge it as they charge any other client. So my country can not afford the
> full license. Conclusion: I have access to a very scant and limited set of
> articles.
> So, as a result of this perverse system, my country is financing the great
> publishers (by means of my copyrights) while researchers around here, if it
> weren't by our colleagues solidarity, are left aside of intellectual
> circulation.
>
> Second, I do not know what happens in other parts of the world but here, in
> Argentina, is illegal that the authors can confer their rights to any
> publisher because, even if they could be scientist they are matched to the
> category of "creators", just as any other writer. And this is a law voted
> at our congress in 1933. You, as an author, keep your right to do as you
> want with your work. Maybe in UK or in USA is different but they are not
> the whole world. That issue may vary.
> In any case, what is the problem with sharing with your colleagues a paper?
> It is not a journal issue, not even a whole book we are talking about here:
> we are talking about a book's chapter or a paper. We are talking also about
> social networking among researchers, something that allow that some sort of
> equity emerges from a very asymmetrical world. Something that Academia.edu
> and this list allow us to reach.
>
> Best
>
> Dra Vivian Scheinsohn
> INAPL-CONICET/ UBA
> 3 de Febrero 1370
> (1426 ) Capital Federal
> Buenos Aires
> Argentina
> TE/Fax 54 11 4784 3371
> E-mail:[log in to unmask]
>
>
>
>
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