I think Sandy Thatcher, President, Association of American University
Presses, continues to have several different points a bit mixed up,
but it does not matter much because he is talking mainly about
books (almost none of which are author give-aways), whereas I am talking
only about journal articles (all of which are author give-aways).
Here it is again, de-mixed:
(1) What I am calling Fair Use is authors emailing eprints of their own
articles to individual eprint requesters, for research purposes, as they
have been doing with paper reprints or photocopies, by regular mail,
for a half century.
(2) I have no "model," but I suppose you could say that
there is a compromise institutional and funder self-archiving
mandate that I am advocating as a model policy (when a stronger
mandate cannot be successfully and quickly agreed upon): The
Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access Mandate (ID/OA), requiring deposit of
the final draft immediately upon acceptance for publication, but only
recommending, not requiring, immediate setting of access to that deposit
as Open Access. Closed Access deposit plus the "Fair Use" (Eprint Request)
Button is then available as an option.
http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html
http://www.eprints.org/news/features/request_button.php
(3) I do (strongly) advocate that all authors should both deposit and
set access as Open Access immediately, but I am not particularly calling
that Fair Use," in the narrow, formal, legal sense. I would call it
"Sensible Use," in the rational sense.
(4) I also much prefer a stronger mandate rather than ID/OA: The best
mandate is Immediate-Deposit/Immediate-Access. But, as noted, time
should not be wasted (as it is today being wasted) trying to get this
stronger mandate adopted, when the ID/OA mandate will do. ID/OA is also
far preferable to a Delayed Deposit mandate, in which it is not just
the OA-setting that is embargoed, but the depositing itself. That is
the worst "mandate" of all, and it is foolish in the extreme to adopt
it rather than ID/OA.
http://www.eprints.org/news/features/request_button.php
Some replies to Sandy:
On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 sgt3_at_psu.edu wrote:
> The thrust of my comments was not directed at your model, Stevan,
> but at what broad interpretations of "fair use" as equating with
> "educational use" encourage faculty to believe. If they further
> believe that they retain all "fair use" privileges after
> transferring all rights to a publisher, and many of their
> colleagues join them in this belief and establish a "best
> practice" of posting postprints to their personal web sites or
> local IRs, under 504(c)(2)
I hope it is clear now that although I most definitely do think that that
(Immediate Deposit, Immediate Access) is the best and most sensible
thing to do ("best practice") -- and I do wish that all researchers
were doing it of their own accord, without the need for a mandate --
that is nevertheless *not* what I was calling "Fair Use" (indeed it has
nothing to do with the "Fair Use Button," which would be superfluous if
all deposits were immediately made OA.)
> their "reasonable" belief that this is
> a correct practice under fair use will insure them against
> liability for infringement should a publisher decide to bring
> suit, thus discouraging legal challenges to the practice.
That's music to my ears. And if article authors had been doing that
since 1994, as (subversively) proposed, we would already long have
arrived at the optimal and inevitable outcome (100% OA) by now. But
most authors are not yet doing that, hence we need the mandates.
http://www.arl.org/sc/subversive/i-overture-the-subversive-proposal.shtml
> The likely result, I allege, of such a scenario is undermining a
> useful subscription-based service like Project Muse, which in
> turn can lead to the demise of many humanities journals, which is
> not the outcome desired by these authors but will be the
> "unintended consequence" of their exercise of "fair use."
The certain result of such a scenario is maximised research access,
usage and impact.
And no, the side-effect of this 100% Green OA self-archiving would not
be the demise of journals; if/when it ever made subscriptions unsustainable,
it would merely cause a conversion to Gold OA publishing.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200304/cmselect/cmsctech/399/399we152.htm
> Your own model, restricted as I understand it to individual
> transactions between author and colleagues interested in the
> author's research, I do not perceive to be a direct threat to the
> survival of journals as it seems unlikely to lead to the
> displacement of subscriptions by libraries and is more an
> extension of the traditional practice of sending offprints or
> photocopies to a limited number of colleagues in direct contact
> with the author.
The Fair Use Button is not a model. It is merely a way of meeting
research usage needs during any embargo period in which access to
the deposited article is set as Closed Access instead of Open Access.
> But I still wouldn't call it "fair use" because permission is
> explicitly invoked in this process.
Sending individual reprints to individual requesters for research purposes
has already established "best practice" status ("ensuring against
liability," to use your words) for a half century now.
Best wishes,
Stevan Harnad
> Sandy Thatcher
> Penn State Press
>
>
> >Sandy, I don't understand why you keep conflating (1) the
> >author's emailing of single eprints to requesters, for research
> >purposes (Fair Use) with (2) making the article OA immediately
> >without the publisher's blessing. The whole point of the ID/OA
> >mandate is to make embargoed articles Closed Access, but to
> >*deposit* them in the IR immediately just the same:
> >
> >On Mon, 11 Jun 2007 Sandy Thatcher, President, Association of American
> >University Presses, wrote:
> >
> >> Here is my nightmare scenario with respect to journals....
> >> Let's say... The publisher objects to the clause that would
> >> allow for posting of the postprint article (in final form) on
> >> the author's institutional repository either immediately or
> >> after six months... The author says, ok, I'll go ahead and sign
> >> this contract but then post the article in final form on the IR
> >> anyway because I can do so under a claim that this practice is
> >> "fair use."
> >
> >That's not ID/OA: ID/OA is to deposit the article in Closed
> >Access and use the Fair Use Button to fulfill individual eprint
> >requests.
> >
> >(I don't believe authors need their publishers' blessing to make
> >their own articles immediately OA, by the way, but we weren't
> >talking about my beliefs, or even about OA, but about the
> >Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access mandate, Closed Access, and the
> >Fair Use Button, which is not OA.)
> >
> > http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html
> >
> >Stevan Harnad
>
>
Received on Sun Jun 17 2007 - 14:16:23 BST