[Open-access] Wiley have been caught incorrectly paywalling & selling (Dirk Verdicchio)

Fri Mar 27 10:09:15 UTC 2015

That depends entirely on the contract, though. I was basically trying to get at exactly Bjorn's point with my devil's advocate argument earlier: contracts *should* specify that the publisher can exclusively publish as open access but often they don't. There could be legitimate reasons not to (e.g., to allow print editions); i think it is more likely a leftover from older copyright transfer agreements, though.

Greetings,
Rens

On March 27, 2015 10:56:20 AM GMT+01:00, Mike Taylor <mike at indexdata.com> wrote:
>Hold on, here.
>
>What these predatory publishers are doing (selling access to OA
>articles) may -- MAY -- be technically legal from a copyright/licence
>perspective.
>
>It surely is NOT legal from a contract perspective. They have accepted
>APCs from authors in exchange for providing free, unlimited access to
>the published work, and are not fulfilling their side of the bargain.
>
>If I were an author who had paid an APC for one of these articles, I
>would certainly write a stiff formal letter requesting the return of
>the funds. (Of course it doesn't arise in my case, since I don't use
>predatory publishers in the first place; and neither should anyone
>else.)
>
>-- Mike
>
>
>
>
>
>
>On 27 March 2015 at 09:35, Bjoern Brembs <b.brembs at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Friday, March 27, 2015, 10:20:41 AM, you wrote:
>>
>>> Now it has happened in 2015 with at least 3 of the major
>>> legacy publishers: Elsevier, Wiley and Springer
>>>  I believe these known incidents are just the tip of the iceberg.
>>>  Something needs to be done about this. Libraries and
>>> research funders sorely need to address this issue!
>>>  We simply cannot trust legacy publishers not to
>>> re-paywall content on whim at any time they choose.
>>> Penalties for this 'accidents' need to be demanded to
>>> properly incentivize the paywallers to take more care with their
>actions.
>>
>> I'm not aware of all instances where this has happened, but for some
>reports I'm getting the impression that the publishers are only selling
>papers which are available free of charge elsewhere? I'd see this as a
>grey area (as long as no licenses are violated).
>>
>> For instance, as long as source and authors are mentioned, you can
>sell, e.g., a topical collection of OA articles. Someone has to curate
>the collection and it's perfectly fine to pay that curator for their
>work.
>>
>> This example shows that the mere fact that a publishers is selling OA
>articles may be a *necessary* condition for an offensive or even
>illegal act, but it is by no means *sufficient*. There are plenty of
>possibilities where selling OA articles is perfectly fine, even
>desired!
>>
>> The really egregious instances are those where no version of the
>article is available free of charge anywhere, because the publishers
>themselves have not made the articles published OA with them
>accessible. I've always understood that this is what Elsevier and Wiley
>have done: charging for articles that should be accessible free of
>charge from their sites. The most recent examples and discussion,
>however, were described in a way that have made me less sure about
>that.
>>
>> Have I misunderstood everything? Are these all just examples of
>publishers selling articles from other sources? Or is each instance a
>little different?
>>
>> Sorry for the confusion,
>>
>> Bjoern
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Björn Brembs
>> ---------------------------------------------
>> http://brembs.net
>> Neurogenetics
>> Universität Regensburg
>> Germany
>>
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