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

Tue Jan 28 17:01:16 UTC 2014

I guess my summary was premature…(sigh)

On 2014-01-28, at 11:11 AM, "Mr. Puneet Kishor" <punk.kish at gmail.com<mailto:punk.kish at gmail.com>>
 wrote:

On Jan 28, 2014, at 7:59 AM, Klaus Graf <klausgraf at googlemail.com<mailto:klausgraf at googlemail.com>> wrote:

1.      The resemblance between CC-BY and the BOAI definition is superficial in nature. It is particularly important for open access advocates to be aware that CC licenses, including CC-BY, do not mean that works must be made available free of charge. CC-BY policy has a huge, potentially systemic loophole: the possibility of re-enclosure. What is given freely today with a CC-BY license could easily be available solely through sale from Elsevier or services like RightsLink down the road.

No evidence for this. Nearly all CC-BY works are available free of cost. CC could clarify that re-enclosure in the digital context isn't allowed.

Indeed. The license very clearly states that you, the licensee, "may not apply legal terms or technological measures<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en_US#> that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits." (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.en_US)

Two comments:

CC would have to have the agreement of the Creative Commons community to change the licenses to prevent re-enclosure. From time to time I participate in the CC community list and have raised the question about CC and free of charge. The short answer is that there are many people in the Creative Commons community for whom freedom means freedom to put up a paywall and charge for works. Consider the difference between open source software, where the code is free for anyone to manipulate, but software creators are free to charge for the software, and open access with its "free of charge". Klaus, I very much encourage you to sign up for the CC community discussion and check in with them about this question:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/cc-community

The licensee "may not apply legal terms or technological measures…" refers to applying legal terms or adding TPMs to the work per se. There is nothing to stop a downstream user from putting up a paywall before you get to the work. Indeed, it would not be possible to do this, as most of us need to go through a paywall to connect to the internet (whether we or someone else is paying).  We are already seeing that people are using articles to compile books for sale - people have to pay to get the book.

best,

Heather Morrison

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