採用Creative Commons授權條款
開放近用文獻係指免費的文獻, 免除大部份著作權及授權的限制。作者同意免費散布的作品, 包括經同儕評閱的學刊論文及其印前出版論文。本文討論免費使用的學刊論文、作者同意的環境, 以及開放近用建立共享的障礙。
- 開放近用
- 內容 - 無版稅及有版稅
- 開放近用式共享
- 開放近用共享的悲劇
- 以開放近用共享建立願景
- 下個階段
開放近用意思免費線上近用, 開放近用文獻不祗是透過網路免費使用,
也免除大部份著作權及授權限制的文獻。開放近用文獻沒有價格及授權的障礙[1]。
開放近用文獻必須是掛在網路伺服器裡的電子文獻, 而且沒有著作權及授權等法律爭議。有兩種程序可以免除此等法律爭議: 把論文置入公版著作,
或著作權人同意供學術使用, 如閱覽、下載、複製、共享、儲存、列印、檢索、連結、爬梳等。也就是放棄著作權法規定的部份權利,
仍保留禁止散布不完整作品或禁止商業性再利用的權利[2]。
釋放及保留之間, 需要取捨, 布達佩斯開放近用倡議會主張[3]:
在網際網路上免費取用學術文獻資源，除了上網本身，沒有其他的費用、法律或技術的障礙，允許個人閱讀、下載、複製、散布、列表、 檢索或連結到 經過同儕評鑑或印前出版的論文、爬梳內容供索引之用、成為軟體的資料、或做其他合法的用途，唯一的限制是在複製及散布時，必須提到作者的名字，並把著作人 格權 歸於作者。
財務規劃上必須先滿足實體及法律上的需求, 數位化、上網、同儕評閱、潤飾編輯、參照連結、電子發送等, 都是必要的費用, 然而,
真正麻煩的是遊說那些抗拒開放近用的作者, 授權費用可大可小, 視情抗拒程度而定。
整體費用的規劃, 視經費來源、學科差異及文化環境而定, 科學論文常來自非英語系作者, 需要較高的潤飾費用, 人文學刊則沒有此狀況。
開放近用文獻對讀者及使用者免費, 製作仍需費用。製作及出版者還需要適度合理的利潤。整體而言, 開放近用文獻的散布面較廣, 費用較低。
有兩個傳送開放近用的方法, 成本及經費來源均不同。
開放近用典藏。典藏為主, 包括未經同儕評閱之印前出版及經過同儕評閱之印後出版。採用開放典藏倡議會[4]之後設資料時, 其內容可以被其他使用者運用。有若干軟體可用。典藏所的費用微乎其微, 伺服器空間及技術員的少許時間。
開放近用學刊。經過同儕評閱後, 把內容公開自由使用。主要費用為同儕評閱、出版編輯及伺服器空間。同儕評閱最重要, 包括編務判斷及文稿管理, 評閱者多半為義務職, 如同作者; 其費用為發送稿件、追蹤流程、催稿、溝通、回收等。引進自由軟體型的應用軟體後, 其成本逐漸下降[5]。
向作者收費, 或作者的雇主、研究贊助者、政府單位, 無力支付的作者, 通常可獲減免; 倘該等收支足夠支應,
則可免費對外提供。電視及廣播的廣告主願意付費, 其費用也足以維持其運作; 科學論文的作者願意放棄版稅, 獲取散布的機會及生涯規畫的依據,
並把出版費視為研究費用的一部份。使用者不付費, 散布者付費[6]。
電視廣播的費用較高, 且沒有傳統業者需放棄既有的收益, 都能夠運作出開放近用的模式, 科學文獻的開放近用模式必定可以成功。況且,
同儕評閱、出版準備、開放近用散布等費用, 遠低於現在付給出版社的訂費。開放近用模式不以向作者收費為唯一的選項, 在生物醫學領域裡,
這種模式運作最佳, 因為絕大多數的研究都有贊助者,
而且已有贊助開放近用的記錄[7]。
其他的領域, 就需要由圖書館擔任學刊出版者的角色。Philosophers'
Imprint是美國University of Michigan出版的同儕評閱學刊[8]。
開放近用的資訊很多, 不以學術論文為限, 音樂、電影、小說、新聞、網站、軟體等。不過, 絕大多數的作者仍不願意放棄版稅[9]。
1665年第一個科學期刊在倫敦及巴黎出版以來, 學刊不曾付版稅給論文[10], 開放近用運動極力爭取的是這塊領域[10]。
學刊不付版稅, 已是共識[11]。
作者期望他的作品被注意到、被閱讀、取用、延伸、應用、使用、引用, 遠甚於收取金錢的回報。需要學刊認證其學術成就,
成為學術生涯的重要依據, 升等及長聘等回報是更實際的價值。學刊才敢厚顏要求論文的所有權或著作權。
無版稅的論文是作者把論文捐給學刊, 然而在開放近用的觀念下, 作者放棄版稅, 但傾向保留著作財產權。
學者已收到大學的薪水, 可以無後顧地的捐贈論文; 這份薪水讓學者可以不必顧慮市場的需求, 儘情撰寫喜愛的論文,
非主流的方向或不受歡迎的概念等。撰寫祗有少數人有興趣的論文, 不必隨波逐流。開放近用及學術自由, 由此而生[12]。
學刊論文無版稅, 讓作者有很好的理由把它捐出, 成為開放近用的文獻, 不必擔心收入減少[13]。學刊藉著著作權法, 以保護作者為名,
其實是保護出版社本身的利益。開放近用或其他授權方式, 都無損於作者的收入。
學者喜歡把論文送給會用的人, 儘量擴大讀者群, 無版稅的論文在此居優勢[14]。
作者寫論文為了影響力不是為了錢, 付費才能閱讀的學刊違反作者的意向[15]。
開放近用文獻是少數, 讓人以為它是異數。法律本身是開放近用的資訊, 判決書也是[16]。
著作權法是保護收取版稅的作者及出版社, 同時保障合理使用的讀者, 公版著作也著眼於著作權失效的已收取版稅著作。未收取版稅的著作,
現在的著作權法中, 沒有特別待遇。使用者還是需得到著作權人的同意, 然而, 它的合理使用、第一次銷售權、著作財產權期限等,
應不同於現有的法制[17]。
社會大眾誤認為所有的文章都是收取版稅的, 這個想法需要一點時間去改變[18]。
學術論文沒有版稅, 學術專書則有版稅, 部份軟體不收版稅。祗要不收版稅, 成為開放近用的機會就很大。
開放近用在全球的發展有三個面向, 依其困難度, 敘述如下[19]:
向無版稅文獻及取得授權之文獻提供開放近用服務。包括公版著作、著作權人同意之著作, 以及稍加遊說, 經過少許的教育訓練, 即可取得授權之文獻。這是最容易的部份, 至少沒有法律障礙, 不過, 還是有技術及財務障礙, 如: 數位化紙本文件、可靠的網站及檢索系統等。
向有版稅文獻及著作權人尚不同意之文獻提供開放近用服務。有著作權之內容, 必須取得授權, 需要相當的耐心去說服。著作權人有權藉著授權取得金錢報償, 他們認為開放授權有違賺錢之道, 很難遊說成功[20]。
修改法令縮短著作權的保護期, 擴大公版著作的範圍; 建立電子內容的第一次銷售原則, 恢愎被著作權保護技術封閉的合理使用權。
第二個階段的任務是說服著作所有權人重新評估其觀點, 第三個階段的任務是說服立法者修改法律。前兩個階段的任務成功後,
就不需要第三個階段了, 反之亦然。第三個階段是最困難的任務, 朝正確的方向修改著作權法, 在政治上幾乎不可能, 其過程既緩慢、片斷又不確定。
部份共享由公版而來, 但不是全部; 公版移除授權障礙,
卻阻礙開放近用。著作所有權人的同意在實務上最常見。開放近用式的共享不祗與著作權相容,
而且尊重著作權人的意思。著作權人保留反盜版及惡意散布的權利, 移除相當的授權障礙, 保障學術研究的自由, 其他的授權仍保留在著作權人手上。
兩種開放近用的法律基礎:
公共版權
著作權人同意
無所有者
所有者存在
無保留任何權利
保留部份權利
所有權利都過期或被釋放
釋放部份權利供學術研究 並非全然志願的, 部份抗拒在所難免
幾乎都是志願的, 偶而要求工作或贊助
學術用途不需要授權
學術用途已經授權
2003年6月, 美國眾議員Martin Sabo提出公眾近用科學法案(Public Access to Science Act, HR
2613), 要求開放政府資助的研究成果。美國絕大多數的自然科學研究都接受政府的支助, 該法案期望把這些補助研究視為政府內部的研究,
就可以免除其著作權。不過, 該法案充滿矛盾, 即使開放近用陣營人士也不支持。該法案以公共版權為基礎, 而不是由著作權人同意,
與著作權法的立場完全對立[22]。
不論採取何種開放近用法律基礎, 對學者的開放是一致的。開放近用與共享是相容的, 沒有競爭立場, 開放近用文獻被使用後, 不會耗損[23]。
這個不會耗損的特性來自數位文獻本身, 不是開放近用屬性。
開放近用與智慧財產的關係:
競爭
非競爭
無版稅
不是開放近用, 非數位化; 如: 印本的學術論文
最容易的開放近用模式; 如: 線上學術論文。
收版稅
不是開放近用, 因為 1)非數位化; 2)沒有著作所有權人的授權; 如: 著作權保護的CD。
罕見的開放近用模式, 因為著作所有權人不會同意授權; 如: 無保護的音樂MP3檔案。
學術文獻不必然是開放近用, 印本學刊有競爭性, 圖書收取版稅。部份非競爭模式的內容採取收版稅經營模式, 也不是開放近用。
非競爭且不收版稅, 才是開放近用的範疇。非競爭模式的內容, 是開放近用爭取的對象, 無版稅者不以金錢為考量,
收版稅者認為開放近用才能增加銷售量[24]。
不收版稅祗是較容易遊說為開放近用, 但不保證可以成為開放近用。開放近用讓作品更容易被使用者近用[25]。
著作所有權人的同意, 構成共享的前提, 但還不是開放近用的共享。法律上取得共享的權利, 還需將作品數位化並置於網際網路。
Ben Franklin相信, 免費借閱的圖書館是智性共享, 雖然它祗依據第一次銷售原則及合理使用權利而思考,
並不是取得著作所有權人的同意[26]。
開放近用的定義是不排斥任何人, 至少是可以上網的人。非開放近用的學刊, 努力禁止非訂戶使用其全文,
雖然歡迎非訂戶閱覽目次、摘要等部份內容。數位權利管理軟體、特別的授權條款、訂戶管理等排斥行為的費用, 需要由訂戶來共同分擔。
開放近用文獻的成本較低, 因為從作者供稿開始, 至到出版為止, 全部電子化; 不需數位權利管理軟體, 沒有訂戶管理事宜,
更沒有催缺等工作。
開放近用文獻不是公版著作, 仍受著作權法保護; 就像空氣及水, 即使沒有人因此而獲利, 仍必須要保護。
BioMed Central及Public Library of Science是開放近用學刊的出版社, 致力於保存開放近學刊,
讓各地都可以自由下載、儲存等, 所以不會消失[27]。
即使沒有法律及價格障礙, 然而還有其他的近用障礙[28]:
身心障礙者的近用障礙 - 身心障礙者無法近用。
語言障礙 - 網路文獻以英文為主, 或祗有單一語文, 機器翻譯還在很原始的階段。
檢查障礙 - 學校、圖書館、政府、雇主限制近用的範圍。
上網障礙 - 數位落差讓數十億人無法上網, 幾百萬學者被迫在離線狀態下進行研究。
開放近用文獻是共享的, 因為經過事先的授權, 可以自由使用; 它是和平的, 因為採取非競爭模式。
非競爭模式讓開放近用文獻避免共享的悲劇, 牧地、大西洋鮭魚、美國賓州煤礦等資源是開放的, 卻屬競爭模式, 落入共享的悲劇。
共享悲劇有兩個模式: 耗盡及僵持。鄉村的牧地共享, 無節制的使用, 造成牧草來不及成長, 形成耗盡悲劇; 單位或個人都願意做同樣的決定,
卻沒有人願意先行, 造成僵持悲劇。大家都願意遵守共享的計畫, 實現共同的利益, 但沒有人願意先行。
共享的悲劇不會破壞共同利益, 祗是阻止其他人建立共同利益。在耗盡的悲劇裡, 即使原先同意保留的部份, 個人仍故意的耗盡所有的資源;
在僵持的悲劇裡, 即使原先同意去做的工作, 個人仍故意的等待或延遲所有的作為。耗盡悲劇固執的消耗掉原來有用的資源,
僵持悲劇阻止任何有用資源的誕生。
所有商店同意在星期日休息, 但是第一個休息的商店將失去客戶。各縣市同意加稅以補助低收入戶, 第一個加稅的縣市將把商人趕往其他縣市,
吸引低收入戶遷入。
如果開放近用普及後, Google或雅虎等搜尋引擎, 將有更多的內容供檢索, 吸引更多的點閱率, 招來更多的廣告,
它們應該很有興趣代作者付費, 以推廣開放近用; 不過, 沒有任何搜尋引擎願意先行, 對手不必付出, 同樣獲利[29]。
有三種僵持悲劇模式[30]:
如果, 大部份或全部學刊都是開放近用, 將更節約大學的成本。祗需付投稿教員的出版費, 不必再付採購學刊的錢。不過, 出版費的新增的支出, 在整體開放近用尚未達成時, 訂購學刊的經費尚未下降, 即面對新增出版費的現況。大學必須減少足夠的傳統學刊, 才能支撐投稿至開放近用學刊的出版費, 矛盾的是, 必須開放近用學刊達到相當數量, 才能減少傳統學刊的訂閱。
在不確定的轉換期間, 大學或研究機構必須支付兩筆費用, 這筆轉換費用延遲新的出版模式; 不是大學彼此在僵持,
而是大學在等待開放近用時代的來臨, 以參與其中。
如果, 部份大學參與開放近用, 先行支付學者的出版費, 其他大學可以坐享其成, 免費使用這些論文,
不必投資就可以享受成果。共享方案因而停滯不前。
學刊以聲望爭取作者投稿, 吸引最佳的稿件提昇其聲望。開放近用學刊是新的刊物, 聲望及對現有學刊的影響指數(impact factors), 都需要時間去培養。聲望及稿件互為因果, 短期內很難有重大突破。
還是有若干手段, 可以突破這些悲劇模式:
首先, 大學不必支付全部或多數學者在開放近用學刊的出版費, 現有的研究經費就足以支應。其次,
很多開放近用學刊甚至不收出版費。第三, 很多大學等不及開放近用學刊的到來,
已經開始裁減昂貴的訂閱學刊。哈佛大學、康乃爾大學、杜克大學、加州大學等名校, 已經巨幅刪減訂閱學刊的數量[31]。最後,
即使開放近用學刊成為主流, 轉換至開放近用學刊仍是一筆可觀的費用。現在的投資是為了節約將來的支出, 大學經常這麼做。
坐享其成是事實, 即使追隨者不做任何回報, 先行者也已經獲得補償。為學者支付的出版費,
增加論文、學者及大學的見光率及影響力。如果不採取這種策略, 就不會有「出版或出亡」的政策。
追隨者失去見光的機會, 喪失影響力, 在開放近用的轉換愈慢, 需要支付更多的訂閱費。
大學採取追隨者的態度, 沒有產出研究論文, 沒有轉換至開放近用的議題, 也就傷害不了任何人[32]。
使用開放近用學刊不是坐享其成, 支持開放近用學刊的機構或個人, 希望別人能夠免費使用開放近用學刊,
就像電視廣告商希望別人看免費的電視。該付錢而不付或耗盡公共財, 才會讓坐享其成受到反對。開放近用學刊的費用已經被支付,
免費使用不侵犯付費機制, 而且增加作者的曝光率; 開放近用學刊是非競爭模式, 沒有耗盡的可能。
首先, 學刊的聲望祗是投稿的考量因素之一, 發行量及影響力是其他的考量因素。開放近用學刊的發行量很大,
遠超過聲望最高訂費最低的學刊。曾有研究指出, 增加讀者或發行量之後, 開放近用學刊的影響指數大增[33]。其次, 假以時日,
開放近用學刊也可以擁有相當的聲望, 有些開放近用學刊雇用傑出的主編及編審, 跳躍式的提昇其聲望[34]。最後,
可以把已有聲望的學刊直接轉換為開放近用學刊, 不必發行新的學刊, 努力增加其聲望。
這些手段足以打破悲劇的循環, 此外, 還有其他的方法可資運用。以外力推動拖延及妨礙因素, 就可能打破僵局。商店果真需要一天休息,
可以透過立法的程序, 強制施行, 就可打破僵局, 並贏得所有人的贊同[35]。美國的法官Cardozo樹立憲法層次的社會安全法(Social
Security Act), 以國家的層級同步實施, 就可充份照顧低收入戶[36]。
有很多外力可資運用, 以推動開放近用。贊助單位把開放近用列入贊助條件,
要求受助人將研究成果經由開放近用學刊或開放近用典藏的方式結案[37]。政府也可以要求把開放近用模式置於公帑資助的研究計畫[38]。第三個方案是,
學術升等及評議時, 要求候選人把學術成果列入開放近用模式[39]。
有兩個策略可以讓開放近用作品與受著作權法保護的作品一致, 第一, 就像七年輪休一樣, 讓各界的同意綁在一起, 以一致的步調建立開放近用;
其次, 研究獎助及大學職位已有很多規定, 要求受獎助人及教員遵守, 祗要把開放近用置入即可。
開放近用文獻是數位的非競爭模式, 不僅沒有傳統的耗盡悲劇[40]也不會被孤立。雖然還不曾發生過, 著作所有權人把部份權利釋放出來,
成為開放近用文獻後, 隨時可以再度聲明, 收回授權。不過, 開放近用之後, 該文獻很可能被很多人在網路上到處複製,
多到著作所有權人都難以一次通知到位, 需要很長的時間, 才能逐一收回[41]。
收回授權很不實際[42], 而且沒有效果, 幾乎不可能達成。
開放近用共享有很多觀點。
學者贊同開放近用, 因為以作者身份, 希望擴大讀者群及增加影響力, 以讀者身份, 期望讀到免費且立即可得的資訊, 以跟上學門的發展;
圖書館員贊同開放近用, 因為解決了期刊的價格危機, 也避免了電子學刊的授權危機, 在著作權法的偏頗下,
不可轉移式的授權方案、軟體限制使用等方法, 讓圖書館及其讀者在使用昂貴的電子學刊時, 處處受限[43]。不過,
學者和圖書館員在開放近用議題上, 並沒有一致的看法。
開發中國家面對另一種情況, 學者及政府強力支持開放近用[44],
不但解決價格危機也讓開發中國家的論文可以向世界發聲。已開發國家在意的是價格危機, 及擴大其讀者群。同樣的, 開發中國家及已開發國家的學者,
在開放近用的議題上, 仍沒有共識[45]。
第三個觀點是自利或利他。學者、大學、圖書館、學會、學刊、出版社、基金會、政府等單位, 對開放近用各有所圖, 以學會為例,
贊成及反對者幾乎各半; 商業性出版社反對者居多, 幾乎蓋過贊成者的聲音[46]。
納稅人付費取得稅金支持的研究論文, 是不公平的做法。商人在謀利的過程中, 不能阻礙學習的權利。知識不是商品,
應該共享。科學應該被機構掌握, 謀求知識的成長, 而不是強化自身的掌控力。知識應該免費。
對於免費的線上近用研究文獻, 有兩種看法。隸屬於機構的學者, 可以免費使用機構訂閱的電子文獻, 對於開放近用完全不能理解[47],
祗要不是從自己的口袋付出, 看不到這個議題。不在意機構付出高價, 也不在意其他機構的同事, 無法讀到文獻。祗要把視野擴大到整個學術圈,
學者就會對開放近用感到興趣[48]。
情勢已改變, 學者對此議題愈來愈投入, 反而是商業性出版社呼籲學者應專注在研究, 不要管其他的事[49]。
Elsevier有意把開放近用污名化。首先, 必須承認開放近用有政治化的訴求, 開放近用不祗是加速研究工作及節省經費,
還有對各種障礙的解放運動、對納稅人更公平的意涵、把學術的控制權交還給學者、促進共享及服務弱者等層面。
即使最富裕的圖書館也不可能採購所有的學刊[50], 必須把眼光放大, 以學科領域裡所有的研究文獻為對象, 參與的人愈多,
研究的進展必然更快。如果, 開放源碼軟體的目標是, 「讓更多眼線參與, 錯誤就會縮小」(Eric Raymond), 開放近用的目標是,
「讓更多學者加入, 學術錯誤及疏忽就會縮小」。
開放近用的第一階段目標是同儕評閱的學術論文及其印前出版。這些作品沒有版稅, 作者已習慣捐贈這些作品, 很容易接授開放近用的遊說。雖然,
還沒有全員同意, 但是成長穩定, 衝勁十足[51]。
圖書是第二階段的目標。學術圖書不會是暢銷書, 作者通常收到金額很少的版稅, 若能授權為開放近用圖書, 讀者群擴大,
曝光率及影響力都大增, 何樂不為。
1994年以來, National Academies Press提供若干免費的線上全文圖書, 對印本的銷售頗有助益,
因此逐年增加免費線上全文圖書的量[52]。Ludwig von Mises Institute[53]、Baen Free
Library[54]也比照辦理。
免費圖書的概念違反直覺, 也有點神秘。坐享其成者祗閱讀線上電子圖書, 而不購買印刷版本, 是否會讓此計畫無法持續下去? 其實,
沒有人會在螢幕上讀完整本書, 很少人願意用自己的印表機, 把整本書印下來, 絕大多數的人翻翻免費的線上電子圖書, 再決定是否要買它的印本來讀。
Amazon以這個概念為藍本, 推出檢索全文(Search Inside the Book)[55]服務,
對有版稅的圖書提供檢索全文的服務, 不是免費閱讀全文, 以刺激購買的慾望。參考工具書及食譜等祗需片斷閱讀的圖書, 或許祗要透過網路,
閱讀部份全文即可, 但是對小說及其他圖書仍是有相當的刺激作用。
以上的經驗有助於作者授權其作品為開放近用, 因為它可刺激買氣。Amazon還在實驗中, 倘若業績因此而有幫助,
願意跟進的出版社一定不在少數。絕版書、滯銷書、市場狹窄的書、精美的插圖書等, 看重影響力而不是收益的書,
一定很願意採取開放近用的策略。不僅僅供檢索而已, 閱讀、列印、複製都免費。
最重要的結果是, 開放近用不以無版稅為限, 開放近用以公版著作及著作所有權人同意為前題,
現在又發現著作所有權人的同意與收取版稅是相容的, 讓以收版稅為主的圖書, 也願意採取開放近用模式, 祗要能夠經由開放近用, 增加銷售,
獲得版稅, 一定有更多的圖書願意加入開放近用。
音樂及電影已經排斥開放近用, 第二階段最可能成功的是圖書[56]。
結論是, 基於各種緣由, 線上開放近用知識共享的研究論文成長速度, 自從文字儲存為位元後, 全文複製的成本趨近於零; 網際網路成形後,
電子複本在全球傳遞的成本也趨近於零。開放近用的成長曲線已經起飛, 沒有回頭的機會。
Suber, Peter, "Creating an Intellectual Commons through Open Access," May 28, 2004 , http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/archive/00001246/01/suberrev052804.pdf
For more detail on the definition of “open access”, and some of
the discrepancies among the published definitions, see Peter Suber,
“How should we define 'open access'?” SPARC Open Access Newsletter,
August 2, 2004.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/08-04-03.htm#define
BioMed Central and the Public Library of Science, the two
largest OA publishers, both use the Creative Commons Attribution
license. See
<http://www.biomedcentral.com/info/about/copyright>
and
<http://www.plos.org/journals/license.html>.
I use the same license for my newsletter on open access; see the last
lines of any recent issue,
<http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/archive.htm>.
Budapest Open Access Initiative
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/read.shtml
Open Archives Initiative
http://www.openarchives.org/
Raym Crow, A Guide to Institutional Repository Software, Open
Society
Institute, version 2.0, January 2004. (A guide to the open-source
software for building and
maintaining OAI-compliant archives.)
http://www.soros.org/openaccess/software/
Despite the fact that peer review consists of donated time and clerical tasks, the costs are greater than most authors would guess. A recent review of the literature put the figure at $400 per published article. One reason the figure is so high is that it covers the cost of reviewing rejected articles.
Fytton Rowland, “The peer-review process,” Learned Publishing,
15, 4
(October 2002) 247-258.
http://miranda.ingentaselect.com/vl=4928683/cl=179/nw=1/rpsv/cgi-
bin/linker?ini=alpsp&reqidx=/catchword/alpsp/09531513/v15n4/s2/p247
I elaborate
further on the comparison to the funding model for
television and radio in “Where Does the Free Online Scholarship
Movement Stand Today” Cortex,
38, 2 (April 2002) pp. 261-64.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/cortex.htm
The largest private funder of medical research in the United
States,
the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the largest in Britain, the
Wellcome Trust, have
adopted this policy. In June 2003, they and other stakeholders issued
the Bethesda Statement
on Open Access Publishing, calling on others to follow suit.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/bethesda.htm
See Section 6, below for some reasons to think that some book
authors
could be
persuaded.
For more on the history of scientific journals and their
relationship
to open access, Jean-Claude Guédon, “In Oldenburg’s Long Shadow:
Librarians, Research
Scientists, Publishers, and the Control of Scientific Publishing,” ARL
Proceedings,
May 2001.
http://www.arl.org/arl/proceedings/138/guedon.html
But see my “Open access when authors are paid,” SPARC Open
Access
Newsletter,
December 2, 2004.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/12-02-03.htm#payingauthors
I discuss the
connection between author donation and academic freedom
in “The end
for free online content?” Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, June 8,
2001.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/06-08-01.htm
Strong copyright protections may be part of the incentive for
authors
of royalty-producing genres, but not for authors of scholarly journal
articles. One reason,
of course, is that journal articles are royalty-free. If scholars make
no income from
their articles, they need no monopoly on that income in order to goad
their productivity. Another
reason is that scholars tend to transfer the copyright in journal
articles to journal
publishers (even if they could often negotiate another arrangement).
The copyright in journal
articles therefore tends to protect publishers, not authors. See Sam
Vaknin, “Copyright
and Scholarship: Interview with Peter Suber, Part I,” United Press
International,
February 19, 2002.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=15022002-015414-4119r
A common misunderstanding among non-academics, and even some
academic
publishers, is that OA appeals primarily to scholarly readers, not
scholarly authors. But in fact, it originated with scholarly authors
looking for ways to enlarge
their audience, increase their impact, and make their work more
visible, more
discoverable, more retrievable, more accessible, and for all these
reasons useful than
conventional publication allowed.
The oldest peer-reviewed, OA journals were launched in the late
1980’s.
See my Timeline of the Open Access Movement,
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/timeline.htm
However, the most prestigious OA journals are much more recent.
One
reason why prestige does not correlate with age here is that the OA
movement had
to incubate for a while before it was possible to recruit eminent
scientists and scholars
to OA journal editorial boards.
In the United States, this is mandated by 17 USC 105.
http://www.title17.com/contentStatute/chpt01/sec105.html
Peter Veeck encountered a weird exception in which a private
organization held the copyright to a publicly enacted statute and
wanted to use its copyright
to block Veeck’s OA version of the text. See my “When public laws are
in the public domain
and when they are not,” Free Online Scholarship Newsletter, June 25,
2001.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/06-25-01.htm
Also see Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress, 5th Cir., No.
99-40632, en banc decision, June 7, 2002.
http://laws.findlaw.com/5th/9940632cv2.html
On December 6, 2001, the French Académie des Sciences released a
public
statement calling on the European Commission not to apply copyright
rules for royalty-producing content to scientific publications for
which the authors seek no
payment. Pétition sur la Directive européenne, December 6, 2001.
http://www.revues.org/calenda/nouvelle1580.html
For example, see Francis Muguet’s “Activity Report” (October 24,
2003)
on negotiations to produce a meaningful endorsement of OA at the World
Summit for the
Information Society. The negotiations were thwarted again and again by
the common
misunderstanding that all literature is royalty-producing literature.
http://www.wsis-si.org/si-prepcom3-report.html
I discuss the
distinction between royalty-free and royalty-producing
content, and the three phases of the OA movement, in “Not Napster for
Science,” SPARC
Open Access Newsletter, October 2, 2003.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/10-02-03.htm#notnapster
See Section 6, below.
When the author and copyright holder differ, then it’s the
copyright-holder’s consent that matters for purposes of OA. OA journals
typically let authors
retain copyright to their articles. But conventional or
subscription-based journals (non-OA
journals) almost always ask authors to transfer copyright to the
journal and authors almost
always agree to do so.
Hence, if we want OA to the preprint (the version of an article
prior
to peer review), then we ask the author. Authors who deposit their
preprints in OA archives
typically do so before submitting their work to journals and long
before transferring
copyright. But if we want OA to the postprint (the version of an
article accepted by a
journal’s peer-review process, often after some revision), then we must
usually ask the
publisher. An increasing number of journals allow authors to deposit
the postprint in an OA
archive. See the database of publisher policies on copyright and OA
archiving maintained
by Project SHERPA, <http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php>.
Martin O. Sabo, Public Access To Science Act (HR 2613),
submitted to
the U.S. House
of Representatives June 26, 2003.
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:H.R.2613:
(The final colon is part of the URL.)
Also see my “Martin Sabo’s Public Access to Science Act,” SPARC
Open
Access Newsletter, July 4, 2003.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/07-04-03.htm#sabo
Here’s an interesting exception. The Public Library of Science
is a
major open-access publisher. The launch of its first OA journal, PLoS
Biology, on October
1, 2003, was long-awaited. Many major newspapers and science journals
wrote stories in
anticipation of it. In the first few hours after the launch, the
journal web site received
over 500,000 visits and over 80,000 requests for a single article. The
PLoS servers couldn’t
handle the traffic and crashed.
See Paul Elias, “Free online journal seeks revolution in science
publishing,” Associated Press, October 16, 2003.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/computing/20031016-1421-openaccessscience.html
Is this a negligible exception? Or should web traffic and server
load
count as diminution of a common, internet resource? If so, then the
internet cannot support
true non-rivalrous commons, except perhaps unpopular or well-funded
ones. But even when
server load diminishes use for others, net-based digital commons are
much more
robust and less susceptible to tragic overuse than analog commons like
grazing land.
Moreover, the burden of overuse is temporary. When they slow down or
crash, they can
be restored to full service after insignificant delay.
See Section 6, below.
I mean that being royalty-free is a fair surrogate for copyright
holder
consent when we are estimating which bodies of literature will carry
copyright holder
consent to OA. I don’t mean that we can infer consent from the fact
that a work is
royalty-free. (Otherwise, we could always buy consent or its equivalent
by ceasing to pay authors.)
On the other hand, there are ways that authors who do consent can
manifest their consent
so that users needn’t ask them individually every time they want to go
beyond
fair-use. See the Budapest Open Access Initiative FAQ, “Must users ask
the author (or copyright
holder) for consent every time they wish to make or distribute a copy?”
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#consentqueries
Because OA depends on the digital character and worldwide reach
of the
internet, it was physically impossible in the age of print. But how
close could we come
in the age of print, simply by removing permission barriers? The free
lending library is one
example. I learned the following example from Barbara McManus, an
emerita classicist at
the College of New Rochelle. J.A.K. Thomson, a classicist at King’s
College London, wrote
the following in a letter to Gilbert Murray, a fellow classicist at
Oxford, March 26, 1944
(p. 4). The original is in the MS. Gilbert Murray Box 174, Fols.
165-67, at Bodleian
Library, Oxford.
I am concerned at the amount of good work in scholarship which
has no
chance of being published −unless of course the Government should
subsidise it. I
am pessimistic about the immediate, though not the ultimate, prospect
for
the Classics. I think compulsory Latin will be abolished and when that
happens the
Classical Departments in other places than Oxford and Cambridge will
dwindle to
nothing. Even now it does not pay a publisher to put out a Latin, let
alone a
Greek, book, however excellent, and the University Presses cannot carry
the burden unsupported. But would it be possible for the B.M. [British
Museum] or
Oxford or Cambridge to invite really good scholars to deposit with them
a typed
or manuscript copy of some magnum opus on which they had spent long
time
and labour? It would then become available to other scholars, even if
it
could not be published.
I outline several other steps taken by BMC in Lila Guterman and
Peter
Suber, “Colloquy on Open Access Publishing,” Chronicle of Higher
Education, January 29,
2004.
http://chronicle.com/colloquylive/2004/01/openaccess/
Peter Suber, “How should we define ‘open access’?” SPARC Open
Access
Newsletter, August 2, 2004.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/08-04-03.htm#define
I first pointed this out in “Predictions for 2004,” SPARC Open
Access
Newsletter, February 2, 2004 (prediction #3).
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/02-02-04.htm#predictions
Shortly afterwards (March 2, 2004), Yahoo announced a program to
index
OA content in a more useful form that is publicly available to its
rivals only in a
less useful form. See the Yahoo press release.
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/040302/25391_1.html
Google is considering a similar plan to create quasi-OA that
benefits
itself more than its rivals. It may digitize all the public-domain
books in the Stanford
University library for its own index. Its rivals could have access to
the same material only if
they digitized the same works. Watch for news reports on Project Ocean.
I talk about these and related obstacles, including other
vicious
circles, in “Why FOS progress has been slow,” Free Online Scholarship
Newsletter, May 15,
2002,
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/05-15-02.htm,
and
“Dissemination fees, access fees, and the double payment problem,” Free
Online Scholarship
Newsletter, January 1, 2002, http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/01-01-02.htm.
See my catalogue, University actions against high journal
prices,
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/lists.htm#actions
Occasionally one hears the objection that elite research
universities,
which produce more research articles per capita than lesser
institutions, will bear the
heaviest load in a future dominated by OA journals. Three quick
responses: (1) Universities will
not be the only payors. Foundations will pay at least as often. (2)
Elite research
institutions will save the most from the conversion, cancellation, or
demise of conventional,
subscription-based journals. (3) Elite research universities currently
pay more for
journals than lesser institutions, but they clearly regard this as the
price of supporting a
higher level of research. Do they want to say that they only buy more
journals than lesser
institutions because they can’t persuade lesser institutions to share
the cost with them?
Steve Lawrence, “Free online availability substantially
increases a
paper’s impact,” Nature, May 31, 2001.
http://www.nature.com/nature/debates/e-access/Articles/lawrence.html
The Electronic Society for Social Science uses the phrase
“instant
reputation” for success in this endeavor. See Manfredi La Manna, “The
Story of ELSSS: A new
model of partnership between academics and librarians,” May 11, 2002,
http://www.elsss.org.uk/documents/CURL_11_03_02.pdf
For example, the Public Library of Science acquired instant
reputation
or instant prestige when it recruited Vivian Siegel to be its new
Editor In Chief. Siegel
was formerly the Editor of Cell. Both PLoS and BioMed Central have
recruited Nobel
laureates to serve on the editorial boards of their OA journals.
See John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Hackett Pub. Co., 1982
(original
1859), p. 88:
Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U.S. 548, 588 (1937).
http://laws.findlaw.com/us/301/548.html
I propose this in my Model Open-Access Policy for Foundation
Research
Grants, July 8, 2003 (most recently revised July 29, 2003).
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/foundations.htm
This was one purpose of Martin Sabo’s Public Access to Science
Act. See
note 22, above. I discuss these issues in “The taxpayer argument for
open access”, SPARC
Open Access Newsletter, September 4, 2003.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/09-04-03.htm
See Southampton University’s draft Departmental Research
Self-Archiving
Policy, which applies to all faculty whether or not they are under
review for
promotion or tenure.
http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/Temp/archpolnew.html
I support versions of all three of these external forces or
nudges in
my list, What you can do to support the cause of open access.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/lists.htm#do
I don’t want to give the impression that all digital and
non-rivalrous
commons inherently resist tragedies of depletion. For example, I
believe that spam
triggers a tragic depletion in the usefulness of email. If the
worldwide network of email users is a
commons that we are all able to graze at will, then spammers are the
over-grazers that are
starting to spoil it for the rest –and spam customers are the incentive
that make spammers do
it. In the case of real grazing land, the over-grazers must be a
significant fraction of
the common users. But in the case of email, spammers are tiny minority.
Moreover, they only
succeed in ruining the email experience for others because a tiny
minority of their recipients buy their products. In this sense there
are two tragic temptations: (1) to send
mass, unsolicited email, “just this once”, even in a good cause, and
(2) to respond
favorably to a spam offer, “just this once”, even for a useful product.
Both practices have the
effect of depleting the email commons, not of content but of
usefulness.
See my “The many-copy problem and the many-copy solution,” SPARC
Open
Access
Newsletter, January 2, 2004.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/01-02-04.htm#manycopy
Or, to be more
precise: since OA to copyrighted content must be
consensual, revoking consent to OA is fully effective in negating the
status of OA. But it
could be completely ineffective at introducing access barriers to that
content.
I discuss the two standpoints, and elaborate on the library’s
standpoint, in “Removing the Barriers to Research: An Introduction to
Open Access for
Librarians,” College & Research Libraries News, 64 (February 2003)
pp. 92-94, 113.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/writing/acrl.htm
See for example Bioline <http://www.bioline.org.br/>, the Electronic Publishing Trust for Development <http://www.epublishingtrust.org/>, the International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications <http://www.inasp.info/>, SciDev.Net <http://www.scidev.net/>, and and SciELO <http://www.scielo.br/>.
Many journal publishers donate electronic subscriptions to
third-world
research
institutions. See Ann Okerson’s list of such programs,
<http://www.library.yale.edu/~llicense/develop.shtml>.
But this
creates another reason why north and south friends of OA use different
arguments in their
analysis and advocacy. A major issue for developing countries is
whether these donated
subscriptions to toll-access journals are good enough, or whether
researchers must press for true
OA.
Here are two examples of publisher self-interest favoring OA.
(1)
Commercial publishers have raised subscription prices four times faster
than inflation since
1986. It was inevitable that this could not continue forever. Starting
and late 2003 and
continuing through the present, more and more libraries are making the
courageous but painful
decision to cancel important journals rather than pay another price
increase. On January
7, 2004, the University of California Academic Senate and all the
library directors
of the UC campuses said in a public letter, “The economics of scholarly
journal publishing
are incontrovertibly unsustainable.” See
<http://libraries.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/facmemoscholcomm_010704.pdf>.
The letter was referring to conventional, subscription-based journals,
not
OA journals. It is now in the self-interest of commercial publishers to
experiment with OA
because they cannot continue business as usual. (2) Publishers that
have digitized
the back run of a journal can make a trickle of income by selling
access to it. But more
and more journals will discover that providing OA to the back run will
bring more net
gain than the revenue. It will increase the visibility and impact of
the journal, and its
‘brand’, which any competent journal can translate into advantage in
the competition for
submissions, advertising, and subscriptions. (3) Learned societies and
non-profit
organizations that publish journals often want to charge subscription
fees and generate
revenue, but they may have more to fear from the giant commercial
publis hers, whose “big
deals” soak up disproportionate shares of library budgets, than they do
from OA.
I heard this often myself. Bob Parks heard it often too and
describes
his observations in “The Faustian Grip of Academic Publishing,” a
preprint posted to WoPEc
(Working Papers in Economics), July 2001.
http://econwpa.wustl.edu:8089/eps/mic/papers/0202/0202005.pdf
Parks: “The point is that readers do not necessarily want [free
online
journals], especially if they can have [priced journals] without giving
up their office or phone
or secretarial services….Readers do care about free availability. But
will they demand
[free online journals] versus [priced journals]? Free availability to
readers is no
out-of-pocket costs.” Parks is describing the view of others, not
necessarily his own.
I discuss this distinction in more detail in “Elsevier CEO on
the
Public Library of Science,” Free Online Scholarship Newsletter,
February 6, 2002.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/02-06-02.htm
When Derk Haank was CEO of Reed Elsevier, he made this argument
in an
interview in
Information Today. See Dick Kaser, “Ghost in a Bottle,” Information
Today, February 2002,
<http://www.infotoday.com/it/feb02/kaser.htm>.
It has been a
favorite Elsevier
argument ever since.
I discuss some measurements showing the journal gaps at leading
U.S.
research libraries in “What’s the ullage of your library?” SPARC Open
Access Newsletter,
January 2, 2004.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/01-02-04.htm#ullage
See for example my account of the progress of OA last year,
“Open
Access in 2003,” SPARC Open Access Newsletter, January 2, 2004.
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/01-02-04.htm
See Michael Jenson, “Academic Press Gives Away Its Secrets,”
Chronicle
of Higher
Education, September 14, 2001. Jensen is the Director of Publishing
Technologies at the NAP.
http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v48/i03/03b02401.htm
Also see the National Academies Press web site,
<http://www.nap.edu/>, and
browse the free full-text books.
Jeffrey Tucker, “Why We Put Books Online,” March 12, 2004,
posting to
the Ludwig
von Mises Institute blog,
<http://www.mises.org/blog/archives/why_we_put_books_online_001698.asp>,
later turned into an article, “Books, Online and Off,” Ludwig von Mises
Institute, March 22, 2004, <http://www.mises.org/fullstory.asp?control=1473>.
Baen Free Library, <http://www.baen.com/library/>.
Also see Eric
Flint’s explanation of Baen’s business model and success, “Prime
Palaver #6,” April 15, 2002,
<http://www.baen.com/library/palaver6.htm>.
Amazon.Com Launches "Search Inside the Book" Enabling Customers
to Discover Books by Searching and Previewing the Text Inside, See the
Amazon press release, October
23, 2003, <http://phx.corporate-ir.net/
phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=IROL-NewsText&t=Regular&id=462057&>,
and FAQ,
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/10197041/002-2808347-4161631>.
The service itself has no particular URL; it is
integrated into the entire book portion of the Amazon site.