[open-science] Elsevier are telling "mis-truths" about the extent of paywalled open access

Wed Feb 22 00:01:41 UTC 2017

Thank you for your comments, Puneet. This advances the discussion last.

We seem to be approaching consensus on one point I consider crucial to planning for long-term OA sustainability: that is, CC licensing by itself is not enough to ensure OA.

At this point I would like to know if there is consensus on this point. Do any list members wish to argue the point that simply applying a CC license is sufficient to ensure OA?

The reason this is crucial is because if we agree that more is needed then we can start discussing strategies on what else is needed.

Ross' work in tracking down articles that should be OA but are not is a very valuable contribution. Elsevier should not be accepting money for OA articles then paywalling them. Agreed. Whether this is a situation one wishes to repeat indefinitely is another question that I suggest we set aside for now as I would like to confirm (or not) consensus on the point that CC licenses on their own are not sufficient to guarantee OA. I will interpret silence as agreement.

Best,

Heather Morrison

-------- Original message --------
From: P Kishor <punk.kish at gmail.com>
Date: 2017-02-21 6:16 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: Heather Morrison <Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca>
Cc: Tom Morris <tfmorris at gmail.com>, open-science at lists.okfn.org
Subject: Re: [open-science] Elsevier are telling "mis-truths" about the extent of paywalled open access

> On Feb 21, 2017, at 5:19 PM, Heather Morrison <Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca> wrote:
>
> The reason why CC licensing is relevant is because there is an assumption that if funder policy demands CC-BY, this is sufficient to ensure open access. This case is a good one to reflect on the wisdom of this approach.

That may be your assumption but that is not my assumption. CC licenses are necessary but not a sufficient condition for open access. But they never were, and no one who understands CC licenses and their role correctly will make that assumption. If I apply CC license to my work but never put that work on a website that is freely and openly accessible to everyone, I will not make my work open access. Please don't conflate these unrelated issues that are also irrelevant to the topic of the current thread. Elsevier took money and made a promise; Elsevier broke that promise. The community is trying to and can hold Elsevier accountable without having to take them to a court of law.

If you don’t want to use CC licenses, fine, then don't. No one is being compelled to use CC licenses. But if you want to call your work open in the same meaning that accorded to the word open by the general community, as defined by Open Definition, among other norms, then *one* of the things you will have to do is to apply a CC (or a similarly open) license to your work.

--
Puneet Kishor
Just Another Creative Commoner
http://punkish.org/About

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