Draft letter about open-access copyright issues
This is only a draft. Comments and suggestions are very welcome.
To the Editors:
One goal of open-access publishing was to enable authors to retain copyright to the papers they create. However, this has created new problems.
The creators of the first major open-access journals put a lot of effort into deciding which form of copyright license would best promote scientific progress. They chose the Creative Commons Attribution license (CC-BY) because this allowed for the widest range of reuse of the work.
The rules and possible benefits of the CC-BY license are described on the journals’ web sites. Some authors do not seek out this information, and simply accept the specified copyright when it is presented to them after their submission has been accepted for publication. Others do read it, but remain ignorant about possible adverse consequences of their CC-BY copyright.
Most authors have no problem with reuse that adds scientific value, but oppose reuse that simply exploits their publications for profit, such as unscrupulous publishers who repackage CC-BY articles into expensive topic-specific collections, which are sold as hardback books to unsuspecting academic libraries. Most authors are surprised by this, and feel that the journals should have informed them that this was allowed under the CC-BY license, especially since they usually paid a substantial sum to make their work publicly available.
The typical response from open-access advocates has been that this is the researchers’ own fault for not carefully reading the license conditions and thinking through all the consequences. But rather than caveat emptor, the principle that should apply here is informed consent. Like participants in a clinical trial, authors in open-access journals are asked to undertake something (the CC-BY copyright) because of its broad scientific benefits. This could also provide benefits to the participants, but it could instead lead to harm. In clinical trials, the onus is on the trial directors to ensure that harm to participants is minimized, and that participants are fully informed of all the unavoidable risks. The same should be true of copyright decisions in open-access journals.
Initially, open-access advocates and authors had little experience of the actual consequences of the CC-BY license. Now is a good time to see how CC-BY papers are actually being reused, and then determine how authors view these outcomes. For example, a preliminary survey indicated that many authors feel that commercial republication is unacceptable.
Once the potential for author-perceived harm has been characterized, journals need to do all they can to reduce these while still maximizing the desired reuses. Harm could also be reduced by allowing authors to choose copyright options that prevent outcomes they view as undesirable. Informed consent would then require the journals to clearly inform authors about the harms that cannot be eliminated, preferably when manuscripts are submitted.
One additional issue is that, when authors retain their copyright rather than giving it to the journal, it becomes the individual author’s responsibility to legally defend their copyright against non-permitted reuse. Since the journals are the ones imposing the copyright choice on the authors, perhaps authors could authorize the journals to protect their rights, perhaps by a simple checkbox when the copyright forms are signed.
Who should be the signatories?
Rosie Redfield
Other individuals?
We should ask Mike Linksvayer to review this letter.
This is only a draft. Comments and suggestions are very welcome.
Background
Here is a link to the 2002 ‘Budapest Open Access Initiative’ statement where open access publishers laid out their motivation for requiring the CC-By license:
“The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.”
http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read