[Open-access] [open-science] Open Science Anthology published

Sun Jan 19 17:43:39 UTC 2014

To be clear, I am not arguing for the benefits of NC licenses, rather against the perspective that CC-BY should be a default for open access, enforced through coercion of open access publishers and as a part of open access policy. I see dangers to open access itself through CC-BY, in addition to these arguments that this focus on licensing ignores steps which would be much more effective in achieving the kind of re-use many CC-BY advocates argue for (attending to formats and metadata standards, for example).  

My work to date on the mapping of open access and creative commons licenses is linked to from this post:
http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.ca/2012/10/critique-of-cc-by-series.html

In brief, while CC is an important initiative and the licenses are very useful, open access and CC licenses simply do not map. An entry point into this argument that all proponents of CC-BY as default should pay attention to: there is nothing in any of the CC licenses that obligates either licensor or licensee to make materials free of charge. It is true that you cannot add DRM to a work downstream to enforce downstream property rights, but you can put up a paywall before the person gets to the work. 

If OA advocates do not wish to see their works up for sale under RightsLink or other toll access venues that may be developed in the future, it is wise to take into account that CC-BY pre-authorizes this kind of use.

best,

Heather Morrison

On 2014-01-19, at 11:58 AM, Mike Taylor wrote:

> Heather argues:
>> In summary, the view that open access can be usefully narrowly
>> defined through legal terms is the view of a subset of the open
>> access community.
> 
> That's technically true. But that subset includes (among many, many
> others) BioMed Central, the Public Library of Science, Hindawi, eLIFE
> and PeerJ. In other words, all the major players in the open-access
> publishing world.
> 
> Heather's view that NC clauses can be useful lingers on in dark
> corners, but no-one should be fooled that a preference for NC is
> mainstream anywhere outside of the legacy barrier-based publishers
> that are being dragged reluctantly into the open-access light and
> fighting every aspect of openness along the way our of sheer habit and
> bloody-mindedness.
> 
> -- Mike.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On 19 January 2014 15:49, Heather Morrison <Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca> wrote:
>> There are different perspectives in whether open access must include blanket
>> pre-approval of commercial re-use rights downstream. Of the fully open
>> access journals listed in DOAJ, for example, many do not use CC licenses at
>> all and many that do use NC. Scholars who do use CC-BY licenses sometimes
>> complain when they see people selling their work downstream. I argue for a
>> broader understanding of open access modelled after Suber's short
>> definition, along the lines of "open access works are digital, online, free
>> of charge to the reader and free of most copyright and licensing
>> restrictions". It is premature and a distraction to focus on particular
>> licenses or licensing elements. Meaningful technical manipulation and re-use
>> is best pursued thorough technical approaches, such as best  practices for
>> formats and consistent metadata. What has made the development and rapid
>> spread of transit applications is a consistent standard for common
>> standard-related information such as bus number, bus stop, scheduling. If
>> every city follows a pattern and releases the data openly then apps can
>> develop and spread quickly. A focus on licensing would not achieve this
>> effect.
>> 
>> Analysis of this example may be useful to highlight why more thought is
>> needed on the question of licensing. Many would agree (including me, for
>> this example), that prohibiting commercial use would stifle development and
>> be largely counter-productive. On the other hand, with no restrictions on
>> re-use, one future possibility is a scenario where everyone has to pay for
>> transit information that is now free. That is, if people use commercial apps
>> and not government services, governments may not continue to develop public
>> services. This may be just fine if the commercial sector provides awesome
>> service, for free, on an ongoing basis. However, one of the potential
>> pitfalls of open licensing we should be paying more attention to is that "no
>> downstream restrictions" includes "no downstream restrictions on paywalls".
>> 
>> In summary, the view that open access can be usefully narrowly defined
>> through legal terms is the view of a subset of the open access community.
>> 
>> Best,
>> 
>> Heather Morrison
>> 
>> On Jan 19, 2014, at 7:36 AM, "Emanuil Tolev" <emanuil at cottagelabs.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>> Discrimination based on field of endeavour I thought was the problem.
>> 
>> Even if some copyright exceptions allow use in situations in which the
>> license didn't *intend* to allow such use, the license still discriminates
>> based on the type of activity ("field of endeavour") - doesn't allow
>> commercial use.
>> 
>> The legal ability to use something for commercial reasons and being told not
>> to by the license are two separate things, though obviously related. Being
>> told not to by the license makes it a non-open license according to OKD.
>> 
>> This isn't to say non-commercial licenses are evil in all situations, I
>> can't pass that judgement. But if you use a non-commercial clause, you
>> certainly can't call the thing "open access" - it's accessible to some part
>> of the population, but it is not "open". Like this anthology (which by the
>> way looks like it's quite nice).
>> 
>> Greetings,
>> Emanuil
>> 
>> On Sunday, 19 January 2014, Pal Lykkja <lykkja at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> What is the problem with CC-NC if it will be possible to reuse like TDM
>>> throught copyright exceptions that EU are working for?
>>> 
>>> Pål Lykkja
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 8:45 PM, Peter Murray-Rust <pm286 at cam.ac.uk>
>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Sounds useful.
>>>> 
>>>> One comment. CC-NC is not Open Access under BOAI- and OKD- definitions.
>>>> I'd urge you to make the book CC-BY. If there are reasons that you can't do
>>>> this, please drop the term "Open Access" and call it "free-of-charge". CC-NC
>>>> forbids many forms of redistribution and re-use
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Sat, Jan 18, 2014 at 7:40 PM, Ulrich Herb <u.herb at scinoptica.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>> Dear lists,
>>>>> 
>>>>> perhaps this might be of interest: Yesterday an anthology on Open
>>>>> Science was published: "Opening Science - The Evolving Guide on How the
>>>>> Internet is Changing Research, Collaboration and Scholarly Publishing". It
>>>>> has been edited by Sönke Bartling from the German Cancer Research Center in
>>>>> Heidelberg and  Sascha Friesike, researcher at the Alexander von Humboldt
>>>>> Institute in Berlin. The anthology knows four manifestations: it is
>>>>> available as a printed book,  as an Open Access e-Book or PDF collection
>>>>> under a CC BY-NC license, and as an editable living document via Github. for
>>>>> further information please visit:
>>>>> http://www.openingscience.org/get-the-book/
>>>>> 
>>>>> Best regards
>>>>> 
>>>>> Ulrich Herb
>>>>> 
>>>>> --
>>>>> scinoptica science consulting and publishing consulting
>>>>> POB 10 13 13
>>>>> D-66013 Saarbrücken
>>>>> Germany
>>>>> http://www.scinoptica.com/pages/en/start.php
>>>>> +49-(0)157 30306851
>>>>> http://twitter.com/#!/scinoptica
>>>>> 
>>>>> ---
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>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> Peter Murray-Rust
>>>> Reader in Molecular Informatics
>>>> Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
>>>> University of Cambridge
>>>> CB2 1EW, UK
>>>> +44-1223-763069
>>>> 
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-- 
Dr. Heather Morrison
Assistant Professor
École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies
University of Ottawa

http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html
Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca