Comment by setgree | Hacker News Reader

Comment by setgree | Hacker News Reader

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> 2. No author will be required to relinquish copyright, but instead will be provided with options that enable publication while also providing authors with generous reuse rights.

I've published a few papers (and have worked closely with Elsevier in a business context). When we published in a paywalled journal, we had the option of paying an APC [0] to make the particular article open access. So in that sense, we were not 'required' to relinquish copyright. It was just costly to retain it.

I suspect this is how some publishers argue that their contracts do not violate these maxims, because an APC option is fairly common, even at Elsevier, I think. Many journals also permit authors to post pre-edited versions of their papers on their personal websites.

I also think that, in line with what a commenter below, a large organization like MIT is not a coherent actor. There are political battles and compromises we don't see. So publishing this list could be someone's tactic for winning the internal struggle against negotiating with Elsevier.

Chris Bourg, who is a prominent advocate for open access at MIT, is my best bet for the driving force behind this:

https://twitter.com/mchris4duke/status/1271094535297339399

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_processing_charge

That's like saying that getting a prison sentence doesn't really remove your liberty, because it's just costly to regain it (with a period in prison).

The point is whether the publisher respects the authors right of republication of its own work, which is enshrined as inalienable right in [several jurisdictions](https://aisa.sp.unipi.it/attivita/diritto-di-ripubblicazione...) like the Netherlands. Even better, the publisher can avoid asking for exclusive rights, which are wholly superfluous for the operation of a journal.

> When we published in a paywalled journal, we had the option of paying an APC [0] to make the particular article open access. So in that sense, we were not 'required' to relinquish copyright. It was just costly to retain it.

It's worth noting that some (maybe even many) journal open access options do not allow the authors to keep copyright, even if they pay money! Open access ≠ keeping copyright.

good point. I just double-checked and ours says:

> Copyright: © Cambridge University Press 2018

> This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

So I guess Cambridge is the copyright holder but it's available under CC, which I think qualifies as "generous reuse rights," as originally stipulated.

I don't think that was an "or" clause, I think it was an "and". The author will retain the copyright, and they will have generous re-use rights (i.e. they will not agree to a restrictive exclusive license).

But Elsevier's lawyers would presumably argue during negotiations that the option to have CC0 distribution of text meets this stipulation, whether in spirit or letter.

I would bet that MIT's choice to divorce from Els came from a combination of ideoligical, budget, and reputational concerns (e.g. the UC system divorced from them as well and MIT now stands in solidarity). So I don't think issue was likely to be decisive.

I think that if the price had been right, all parties would have found a way to argue that the stated terms had been met -- or to simply not address them.

Chris Bourg sent the email announcing it.

As far as I understood it 2. isn't about open access per see. It's just completely absurd that e.g. if I publish an paper and than want to re read it in a year I have to buy my own paper. Same when I want to give it to an intern to read and similar.

So it's about the author being able to reuse it for himself, not about open access.

But in practice "reuse it for himself" means "upload to arXiv."

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