boaiforum messages

--001a11357bd08e1c610516ec234c
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

*Alicia Wise wrote*
<http://www.elsevier.com/connect/coar-recting-the-record#comment-2037996108=
>
:

*Dear Stevan,*

*I admire your vision and passion for green open access =E2=80=93 in fact w=
e all do
here at Elsevier - and for your tenacity as your definitions and concepts
of green open access have remain unchanged for more than 15 years. We also
recognize that the open access landscape has changed dramatically over the
last few years, for example with the emergence of Social Collaboration
Networks. This refresh of our policy, the first since 2004, reflects what
we are hearing from researchers and research institutions about how we can
support their changing needs. We look forward to continuing input from and
collaboration with the research community, and will continue to review and
refine our policy.*

*Let me state clearly that we support both green and gold OA. Embargo
periods have been used by us =E2=80=93 and other publishers =E2=80=93 for a=
 very long time
and are not new. The only thing that=E2=80=99s changed about IRs is our old=
 policy
said you had to have an agreement which included embargos, and the new
policy is you don=E2=80=99t need to do an agreement provided you and your a=
uthors
comply with the embargo period policy. It might be most constructive for
people to just judge us based on reading through the policy and considering
what we have said and are saying.*

*With kind wishes and good night,*

*Alicia Wise, Elsevier*

Dear Alicia,

You wrote:

*"This refresh of our policy [is| the first since 2004... Embargo periods
have been used by us... for a very long time and are not new. The only
thing that=E2=80=99s changed about IRs is our old policy said you had to ha=
ve an
agreement which included embargos..."*

Is this the old policy that hasn't changed changed since 2004 (when
Elsevier was still on the "side of the angels ↵
<http://j.mp/OAngelS>"
insofar as Green OA was concerned) until the "refresh"? (I don't see ↵
any
mention of embargoes in it...):

*Date:** Thu, 27 May 2004 03:09:39 +0100 *

*From:** "Hunter, Karen (ELS-US)" *

*To:** "'harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk ↵
<http://harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>\'" *

*Cc:** "Karssen, Zeger (ELS)" , "Bolman, Pieter (ELS)" , ↵
"Seeley, Mark
(ELS)" *

*Subject:** Re: Elsevier journal list *

*Stevan, *

*[H]ere is what we have decided on post-"prints" (i.e. published ↵
articles,
whether published electronically or in print): *

*An author may post his version of the final paper on his personal web site
and on his institution's web site (including its institutional
respository). Each posting should include the article's citation and a link
to the journal's home page (or the article's DOI). The author does not need
our permission to do this, but any other posting (e.g. to a repository
elsewhere) would require our permission. By "his version" we are ↵
referring
to his Word or Tex file, not a PDF or HTML downloaded from ScienceDirect -
but the author can update his version to reflect changes made during the
refereeing and editing process. Elsevier will continue to be the single,
definitive archive for the formal published version. *

*We will be gradually updating any public information on our policies
(including our copyright forms and all information on our web site) to get
it all consistent. *

*Karen Hunter *

*Senior Vice President, Strategy *

*Elsevier *

*+1-212-633-3787 *

*k.hunter_at_elsevier.com <http://k.hunter_at_elsevier.com>*

Yes, the definition of authors providing free, immediate online access
(Green OA self-archiving) has not changed since the online medium first
made it possible. Neither has researchers=E2=80=99 need for it changed, nor=
 its
benefits to research.

What has changed is Elsevier policy -- in the direction of trying to
embargo Green OA to ensure that it does not Elsevier's current revenue
levels at any risk.

Elsevier did not try to embargo Green OA from 2004-2012 =E2=80=94 but appar=
ently
only because they did not believe that authors would ever really bother to
provide much Green OA, nor that their institutions and funders would ever
bother to require them to provide it (for its benefits to research).

But for some reason *Elsevier is not ready to admit that Elsevier has now
decided to embargo Green OA purely to ensure that it does put Elsevier's
current subscription revenue levels at any risk. *

Instead, Elsevier wants to hold OA hostage to its current revenue levels --
by embargoing Green OA, with the payment of Fools-Gold OA
<https://www.google.ca/search?num=3D20&q=3Dsite%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fopenaccess.e=
prints.org+%22fools+gold%22&oq=3Dsite%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fopenaccess.eprints.org=
+%22fools+gold%22&gs_l=3Dserp.3...339136.344145.0.345749.12.12.0.0.0.0.217.=
856.11j0j1.12.0.ckpsrh...0...1.1.64.serp..12.0.0._lRkTp5SLmk>
publication fees the only alternative for immediate OA. This ensures that
Elsevier's current revenue levels either remain unchanged, or increase.

But, for public-relations reasons, Elsevier prefers to try to portray this
as all being done out of =E2=80=9Cfairness,=E2=80=9D and to facilitate =E2=
=80=9Csharing=E2=80=9D (in the
spirit of OA).

The =E2=80=9Cfairness=E2=80=9D is to ensure that no institution is exempt f=
rom Elsevier=E2=80=99s
Green OA embargoes.

And the =E2=80=9Csharing=E2=80=9D is the social sharing services like Mende=
ley
<http://www.elsevier.com/online-tools/mendeley> (which Elsevier owns),
about which Elsevier now believes (for the time being) that authors would
not bother to use enough to put their current revenue levels at risk (and
their institutions and funders cannot mandate that they use them) -- hence
that that they would not pose a risk to Elsevier's current subscription
revenue levels.

Yet another one of the =E2=80=9Cchanges=E2=80=9D with which Elsevier seems =
to be trying to
promote sharing seems to be by trying to find a way to outlaw the
institutional repositories=E2=80=99 "share button
<http://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/hosting#non-commercial-platforms>"
(otherwise known as the =E2=80=9CFair-Dealing=E2=80=9D Button
<http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18511/>).

So just as Elsevier is trying to claim credit for =E2=80=9Callowing=E2=80=
=9D authors to do
=E2=80=9Cdark=E2=80=9D (i.e., embargoed, non-OA) deposits, for which no pub=
lisher
permission whatsoever is or ever was required, Elsevier now has its lawyers
scrambling to find a formalizable way to make it appear as if Elsevier can
forbid its authors to provide individual reprints to one another, as
authors have been doing for six decades, under yet another new bogus formal
pretext to make it appear sufficiently confusing and threatening to ensure
that the responses to Elsevier author surveys (for its "evidence-based
policy") continue to be sufficiently perplexed and meek to justify any
double-talk in either Elsevier policy or Elsevier PR.

The one change in Elsevier policy that one can applaud, however (though
here too the underlying intentions were far from benign), is the CC-BY-NC-N=
D
license
<http://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/article-posting-policy#accepted-man=
uscript>
(unless Elsevier one day decides to back-pedal on that too too). That
license is now not only allowed but required for any accepted paper that an
author elects to self-archive.

Let me close by mentioning a few more of the howlers that keep making
Elsevier's unending series of arbitrary contractual bug-fixes logically
incoherent (i.e., self-contradictory) and technically nonsensical, hence
moot, unenforceable, and eminently ignorable for anyone who takes a few
moments to think instead of cringe. *Elsevier is trying to use pseudo-legal
words to squeeze the virtual genie (the Web) back into the physical bottle
(the old, land-based, print-on-paper world):*

*Locus of deposit:* Elsevier tries to make legal distinctions on ↵
"where"
the author may make their papers (Green) OA on the Web: "You may post it
here but not there." "Here" might be an institutional website, ↵
"there" may
be a central website. "Here" might be an institutional author's ↵
homepage,
"there" might be an institutional repository.

But do Elsevier's legal beagles ever stop to ask themselves what this all
means, in the online medium? *If you make your paper openly accessible
anywhere at all on the web, it is openly accessible (and linkable and
harvestable) from and to anywhere else on the Web.* Google and google
scholar will pick up the link, and so will a host of other harvesters and
indexers. And users never go to the deposit site to seek a paper: They seek
and find and link to it via the link harvesters and indexers. So locus
restrictions are silly and completely empty in the virtual world.

The silliest of all is the injunction that "you may post it on your
institutional home page but not your institutional repository." What
nonsense! The institutional home page and the institutional repository are
just tagged disk sectors and software functions, of the self-same
institution. They are virtual entities, created by definition; one can be
renamed as the other at any time. And their functionalities are completely
swappable or integrable too. That too is a feature of the virtual world.

So all Elsevier is doing by treating these virtual entities as if they were
physical ones (besides confusing and misleading their authors) is creating
terminological nuisances, forcing system administrators to keep re-naming
and re-assigning sectors and functions, needlessly, and vacuously, just to
accommodate vacuous nuisance terminological stipulations.

(The same thing applies to "systematicity" and ↵
"aggregation," which I
notice that Elsevier has since dropped as futile: The attempt had been to
outlaw posting where the contents of a journal were being systematically
aggregated, by analogy with a rival free-riding publisher systematically
gathering together all the disparate papers in a journal so as to re-sell
them at a cut-rate. Well not only is an institution no free-rising
aggregator: all it is gathering* its own paper output*, published in
multiple disparate journals. But, because of the virtual nature of the
medium, it is in fact the Web itself that is systematically gathering all
disparate papers together, wherever they happen to be hosted, using their
metadata tags: author, title, journal, date, URL. The rest is all just
software functionality. And if the full-text is out there, somewhere,
anywhere, and it is OA, then there is no way to stop the rest of this very
welcome and useful functionality.)

*The Arxiv exception.* In prior iterations of the policy, Elsevier tried
(foolishly) to outlaw central deposit. They essentially tried to tell
authors who had been making their papers OA in Arxiv since 1991 that they
may no longer do that. Well, that did not go down very well, so those
"legal" restrictions have now been replaced by the "Arxiv ↵
exception":
Authors making their papers OA there (or in RePeC) are now officially
exempt from the Elsevier OA embargo.

Well here we are again: an arbitrary Elsevier restriction on immediate-OA,
based on locus of deposit. The Pandora's box that this immediately opens is
that all a mandating institution need do in order to detoxify Elsevier's OA
embargo completely is to mandate immediate (dark) deposit of all
institutional output in the institutional repository *alongside remote
deposit in Arxiv* (which is already automated through the SWORD software
<http://arxiv.org/help/submit_sword>). That completely moots all Elsevier
OA embargoes. Yet another example of Elsevier's ineffectual nuisance
stipulations consisting of ad-hoc, pseudo-legal epicycles, all having one
sole objective: to try to scare authors of doing anything that might
possibly pose a risk to Elsevier's current revenue streams, using any words
that will do the trick, even if only for a while, and even if they make no
sense.

What's next, Elsevier? "You may use *this* software but not *this*
software"?

*The Share Button.* Although it never defines what it means by "Share
Button" (nor why it is trying to outlaw it), if what Elsevier means is the
Institutional Repository's copy-request Button
<https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/RequestCopy>, intended to
provide individual copies to individual copy-requestors, then this too is
just a software-facilitated eprint request.

Whenever a user seeks an embargoed deposit, they can click the Button to
send an email to the author to request a copy. The author need merely click
a link in the email to authorize the software to send the copy.

So does Elsevier now want to make yet another nuisance stipulation, so the
Button cannot be called a "Share Button," so instead the name of the ↵
author
of the embargoed paper has to be made into an email link that notifies the
author that the requestor seeks a copy, with the requestor's email alive,
and clickable, so that inserting the embargoed paper's URL will attach one
copy to the email?

Elsevier is not going to make many friends by trying to force its authors
to do jump through gratuitous hoops in order to accommodate Elsevier's ever
more arbitrary and absurd attempts to contain the virtual ether with
arbitrary verbal hacks.

*There are more.* There are further nuisance tactics in the current
iteration of Elsevier's charm initiative, in which self-serving
restrictions keep being portrayed as Elsevier's honest attempts to
facilitate rather than hamper sharing. One particularly interesting one
that I have not yet deconstructed (but that the attentive reader of the
latest Elsevier documentation will have detected) likewise moots all
Elsevier OA embargoes even more conveniently than depositing all papers in
Arxiv -- but I leave that as an exercise to the reader.

So Alicia, if Elsevier "admires [my] vision," let me invite you to ↵
consult
with me about present and future OA policy conditions. I'll be happy to
share with you which ones are logically incoherent and technically empty in
today's virtual world. It could save Elsevier a lot of futile effort and
save Elsevier authors from a lot of useless and increasingly arbitrary and
annoying nuisance-rules.

Best wishes,

*Stevan Harnad*

--001a11357bd08e1c610516ec234c
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<div dir=3D"ltr">

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial"><a =
href=3D"http://www.elsevier.com/connect/coar-recting-the-record#comment-203=
7996108"><b><span ↵
style=3D"color:rgb(38,38,38)">Alicia Wise ↵
wrote</span></b=
></a><span ↵
style=3D"color:rgb(38,38,38)">:</span></span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><b><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" style=3D"font-family:Arial;c=
olor:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></b></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">Dear ↵
Stevan,<=
/span></i></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span>=
</i></p>

I ↵
admire your=
 vision
and passion for green open access =E2=80=93 in fact we all do here at Elsev=
ier - and
for your tenacity as your definitions and concepts of green open access hav=
e
remain unchanged for more than 15 years. We also recognize that the open ac=
cess
landscape has changed dramatically over the last few years, for example wit=
h
the emergence of Social Collaboration Networks. This refresh of our policy,=
 the
first since 2004, reflects what we are hearing from researchers and researc=
h
institutions about how we can support their changing needs. We look forward=
 to
continuing input from and collaboration with the research community, and wi=
ll
continue to review and refine our policy.

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span>=
</i></p>

Let ↵
me state =
clearly
that we support both green and gold OA. Embargo periods have been used by u=
s =E2=80=93
and other publishers =E2=80=93 for a very long time and are not new. The on=
ly thing
that=E2=80=99s changed about IRs is our old policy said you had to have an =
agreement
which included embargos, and the new policy is you don=E2=80=99t need to do=
 an
agreement provided you and your authors comply with the embargo period poli=
cy.
It might be most constructive for people to just judge us based on reading
through the policy and considering what we have said and are ↵
saying.=

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span>=
</i></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">With ↵
kind wis=
hes and
good night,</span></i></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">Alicia Wise, =
Elsevier</span></i><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family=
:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)"></span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">Dear Alicia,</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">You wrote:</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

&quot;This ↵
refresh of our po=
licy [is|
the first since 2004... Embargo periods have been used by us... for a very =
long
time and are not new. The only thing that=E2=80=99s changed about IRs is ou=
r old policy
said you had to have an agreement which included ↵
embargos...&quot;</=
i></sp=
an>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

Is this the old policy that hasn&#39;t changed ↵
changed
since 2004 (when Elsevier was still on the &quot;<a ↵
href=3D"http://j.mp/OAn=
gelS">side of the ↵
angels</a>&quot=
; insofar as Green OA
was concerned) until the &quot;refresh&quot;? (I don&#39;t see any ↵
mention =
of
embargoes in it...):

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><b><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US=
" ↵
style=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">Date:</spa=
n></i></b><i><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial=
;color:rgb(38,38,38)"> Thu, 27 May 2004 03:09:39 +0100 ↵
</span></i></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><b><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US=
" ↵
style=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">From:</spa=
n></i></b><i><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial=
;color:rgb(38,38,38)"> &quot;Hunter, Karen (ELS-US)&quot; ↵
</span></i></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><b><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US=
" ↵
style=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">To:</span>=
</i></b><i><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;c=
olor:rgb(38,38,38)"> &quot;&#39;<a ↵
href=3D"http://harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk=
">harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk</a>&#39;&quot; ↵
</span></i></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><b><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US=
" ↵
style=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">Cc:</span>=
</i></b><i><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;c=
olor:rgb(38,38,38)"> &quot;Karssen, Zeger (ELS)&quot; , ↵
&quot;Bolman, Piete=
r (ELS)&quot; ,
&quot;Seeley, Mark (ELS)&quot; </span></i></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><b><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US=
" ↵
style=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">Subject:</=
span></i></b><i><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Ar=
ial;color:rgb(38,38,38)"> Re: Elsevier journal list ↵
</span></i></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span>=
</i></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">Stevan, </spa=
n></i></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span>=
</i></p>

[H]ere is wha=
t we have
decided on post-&quot;prints&quot; (i.e. published articles, whether ↵
publis=
hed
electronically or in print):

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span>=
</i></p>

An ↵
author may=
 post his
version of the final paper on his personal web site and on his ↵
institution&=
#39;s
web site (including its institutional respository). Each posting should inc=
lude
the article&#39;s citation and a link to the journal&#39;s home page ↵
(or th=
e article&#39;s
DOI). The author does not need our permission to do this, but any other pos=
ting
(e.g. to a repository elsewhere) would require our permission. By &quot;his
version&quot; we are referring to his Word or Tex file, not a PDF or HTML
downloaded from ScienceDirect - but the author can update his version to
reflect changes made during the refereeing and editing process. Elsevier wi=
ll
continue to be the single, definitive archive for the formal published vers=
ion.

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span>=
</i></p>

We ↵
will be gr=
adually
updating any public information on our policies (including our copyright fo=
rms
and all information on our web site) to get it all consistent. ↵
<=
/p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span>=
</i></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">Karen Hunter =
</span></i></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">Senior Vice P=
resident,
Strategy </span></i></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">Elsevier </sp=
an></i></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">+1-212-633-37=
87 </span></i></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><i><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" s=
tyle=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)"><a href=3D"ht=
tp://k.hunter_at_elsevier.com">k.hunter_at_elsevier.com</a></span></i><span=
 lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,3=
8)"></span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

Yes, the definition of authors providing free,
immediate online access (Green OA self-archiving) has not changed since the
online medium first made it possible. Neither has researchers=E2=80=99 need=
 for it
changed, nor its benefits to research.

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

What has changed is Elsevier policy -- in the
direction of trying to embargo Green OA to ensure that it does not Elsevier=
&#39;s
current revenue levels at any risk.

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">Elsevier did not try to embargo Green OA from
2004-2012 =E2=80=94 but apparently only because they did not believe that a=
uthors would
ever really bother to provide much Green OA, nor that their institutions an=
d
funders would ever bother to require them to provide it (for its benefits t=
o
research).</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

But for some reason Elsevier is not ready to ↵
admit
that Elsevier has now decided to embargo Green OA purely to ensure that it =
does
put Elsevier&#39;s current subscription revenue levels at any risk. ↵
</s=
pan>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

Instead, Elsevier wants to hold OA hostage to its
current revenue levels -- by embargoing Green OA, with the payment of <a hr=
ef=3D"https://www.google.ca/search?num=3D20&amp;q=3Dsite%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fope=
naccess.eprints.org+%22fools+gold%22&amp;oq=3Dsite%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fopenacces=
s.eprints.org+%22fools+gold%22&amp;gs_l=3Dserp.3...339136.344145.0.345749.1=
2.12.0.0.0.0.217.856.11j0j1.12.0.ckpsrh...0...1.1.64.serp..12.0.0._lRkTp5SL=
mk">Fools-Gold ↵
OA</a> publication=
 fees the only
alternative for immediate OA. This ensures that Elsevier&#39;s current ↵
reve=
nue
levels either remain unchanged, or increase.

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">But, for public-relations reasons, Elsevier prefers to
try to portray this as all being done out of =E2=80=9Cfairness,=E2=80=9D an=
d to facilitate
=E2=80=9Csharing=E2=80=9D (in the spirit of OA).</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

The =E2=80=9Cfairness=E2=80=9D is to ensure that no ↵
instit=
ution is
exempt from Elsevier=E2=80=99s Green OA embargoes.

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">And the =E2=80=9Csharing=E2=80=9D is the social ↵
sharing se=
rvices like <a ↵
href=3D"http://www.elsevier.com/online-tools/mendeley"><span=
 style=3D"color:rgb(3,37,83)">Mendeley</span></a>
(which Elsevier owns), about which Elsevier now believes (for the time bein=
g)
that authors would not bother to use enough to put their current revenue le=
vels
at risk (and their institutions and funders cannot mandate that they use th=
em)
-- hence that that they would not pose a risk to Elsevier&#39;s current
subscription revenue levels.</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

Yet another one of the =E2=80=9Cchanges=E2=80=9D with ↵
whic=
h Elsevier
seems to be trying to promote sharing seems to be by trying to find a way t=
o
outlaw the institutional repositories=E2=80=99 &quot;<a ↵
href=3D"http://www.=
elsevier.com/about/policies/hosting#non-commercial-platforms">share ↵
button</a>&quot; (otherwise known as t=
he <a href=3D"http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18511/">=E2=80=9CFair-Dealing=E2=80=9D
Button</a>).

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">So just as Elsevier is trying to claim credit for
=E2=80=9Callowing=E2=80=9D authors to do =E2=80=9Cdark=E2=80=9D (i.e., emba=
rgoed, non-OA) deposits, for which
no publisher permission whatsoever is or ever was required, Elsevier now ha=
s
its lawyers scrambling to find a formalizable way to make it appear as if
Elsevier can forbid its authors to provide individual reprints to one anoth=
er,
as authors have been doing for six decades, under yet another new bogus for=
mal
pretext to make it appear sufficiently confusing and threatening to ensure =
that
the responses to Elsevier author surveys (for its &quot;evidence-based
policy&quot;) continue to be sufficiently perplexed and meek to justify any
double-talk in either Elsevier policy or Elsevier PR.</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">The one change in Elsevier policy that one can
applaud, however (though here too the underlying intentions were far from
benign), is the <a ↵
href=3D"http://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/article-p=
osting-policy#accepted-manuscript"><span ↵
style=3D"color:rgb(3,37,83)">CC-BY=
-NC-ND license</span></a> (unless Elsevier one day
decides to back-pedal on that too too). That license is now not only allowe=
d
but required for any accepted paper that an author elects to self-archive.<=
/span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

Let me close by mentioning a few more of the howlers
that keep making Elsevier&#39;s unending series of arbitrary contractual ↵
bu=
g-fixes
logically incoherent (i.e., self-contradictory) and technically nonsensical=
,
hence moot, unenforceable, and eminently ignorable for anyone who takes a f=
ew
moments to think instead of cringe. Elsevier is trying to use ↵
pseudo-leg=
al
words to squeeze the virtual genie (the Web) back into the physical bottle =
(the
old, land-based, print-on-paper world):

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

Locus of ↵
deposit:=

Elsevier tries to make legal distinctions on &quot;where&quot; the ↵
author m=
ay
make their papers (Green) OA on the Web: &quot;You may post it here but not
there.&quot; &quot;Here&quot; might be an institutional website,
&quot;there&quot; may be a central website. &quot;Here&quot; ↵
might be an
institutional author&#39;s homepage, &quot;there&quot; might be an ↵
institut=
ional
repository.

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

But do ↵
Elsevier&#39;s legal bea=
gles ever stop to ask
themselves what this all means, in the online medium? If you make your ↵
p=
aper
openly accessible anywhere at all on the web, it is openly accessible (and
linkable and harvestable) from and to anywhere else on the Web. ↵
Google =
and
google scholar will pick up the link, and so will a host of other harvester=
s
and indexers. And users never go to the deposit site to seek a paper: They =
seek
and find and link to it via the link harvesters and indexers. So locus
restrictions are silly and completely empty in the virtual world. ↵
</=
p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

The silliest of all is ↵
the inju=
nction that &quot;you
may post it on your institutional home page but not your institutional
repository.&quot; What nonsense! The institutional home page and the
institutional repository are just tagged disk sectors and software function=
s,
of the self-same institution. They are virtual entities, created by definit=
ion;
one can be renamed as the other at any time. And their functionalities are
completely swappable or integrable too. That too is a feature of the virtua=
l
world.

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">So all Elsevier is ↵
doing by tre=
ating these virtual
entities as if they were physical ones (besides confusing and misleading th=
eir
authors) is creating terminological nuisances, forcing system administrator=
s to
keep re-naming and re-assigning sectors and functions, needlessly, and
vacuously, just to accommodate vacuous nuisance terminological stipulations=
.</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

(The same thing ↵
applies to &quo=
t;systematicity&quot;
and &quot;aggregation,&quot; which I notice that Elsevier has since ↵
dropped=
 as
futile: The attempt had been to outlaw posting where the contents of a jour=
nal
were being systematically aggregated, by analogy with a rival free-riding
publisher systematically gathering together all the disparate papers in a
journal so as to re-sell them at a cut-rate. Well not only is an institutio=
n no
free-rising aggregator: all it is gathering its own ↵
paper output<=
/i>,
published in multiple disparate journals. But, because of the virtual natur=
e of
the medium, it is in fact the Web itself that is systematically gathering a=
ll
disparate papers together, wherever they happen to be hosted, using their
metadata tags: author, title, journal, date, URL. The rest is all just soft=
ware
functionality. And if the full-text is out there, somewhere, anywhere, and =
it
is OA, then there is no way to stop the rest of this very welcome and usefu=
l
functionality.)

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

The Arxiv ↵
exception.<=
/b> In
prior iterations of the policy, Elsevier tried (foolishly) to outlaw centra=
l
deposit. They essentially tried to tell authors who had been making their
papers OA in Arxiv since 1991 that they may no longer do that. Well, that d=
id
not go down very well, so those &quot;legal&quot; restrictions have now ↵
bee=
n
replaced by the &quot;Arxiv exception&quot;: Authors making their ↵
papers OA
there (or in RePeC) are now officially exempt from the Elsevier OA embargo.=

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

Well here we are ↵
again: an arbi=
trary Elsevier
restriction on immediate-OA, based on locus of deposit. The Pandora&#39;s ↵
b=
ox that
this immediately opens is that all a mandating institution need do in order=
 to
detoxify Elsevier&#39;s OA embargo completely is to mandate immediate ↵
(dark=
)
deposit of all institutional output in the institutional repository ↵
alon=
gside
remote deposit in Arxiv (which is already automated through the <a ↵
href=
=3D"http://arxiv.org/help/submit_sword">=
SWORD
software</a>). That completely moots all Elsevier OA ↵
embargoes. Yet
another example of Elsevier&#39;s ineffectual nuisance stipulations ↵
consist=
ing of
ad-hoc, pseudo-legal epicycles, all having one sole objective: to try to sc=
are
authors of doing anything that might possibly pose a risk to ↵
Elsevier&#39;s=
 current
revenue streams, using any words that will do the trick, even if only for a
while, and even if they make no sense.

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

What&#39;s next, ↵
Elsevier? &quo=
t;You may use this
software but not this ↵
software&quot;?

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

The Share ↵
Button.=

Although it never defines what it means by &quot;Share Button&quot; ↵
(nor wh=
y it
is trying to outlaw it), if what Elsevier means is the Institutional
Repository&#39;s <a ↵
href=3D"https://wiki.duraspace.org/display/DSPACE/Reque=
stCopy">copy-request ↵
Button</a>, =
intended to provide
individual copies to individual copy-requestors, then this too is just a
software-facilitated eprint request.

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

Whenever a user seeks ↵
an embarg=
oed deposit, they can
click the Button to send an email to the author to request a copy. The auth=
or
need merely click a link in the email to authorize the software to send the
copy.

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">So does Elsevier now ↵
want to ma=
ke yet another nuisance
stipulation, so the Button cannot be called a &quot;Share Button,&quot; ↵
so
instead the name of the author of the embargoed paper has to be made into a=
n
email link that notifies the author that the requestor seeks a copy, with t=
he
requestor&#39;s email alive, and clickable, so that inserting the ↵
embargoed=
 paper&#39;s
URL will attach one copy to the email?</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">Elsevier is not going ↵
to make m=
any friends by trying
to force its authors to do jump through gratuitous hoops in order to
accommodate Elsevier&#39;s ever more arbitrary and absurd attempts to ↵
conta=
in the
virtual ether with arbitrary verbal hacks.</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal" ↵
style=3D"margin-left:36pt"><span lang=3D"EN-US" styl=
e=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

There are ↵
more.<s=
pan lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;color:rgb(38,38,38)">
There are further nuisance tactics in the current iteration of ↵
Elsevier&#39=
;s charm
initiative, in which self-serving restrictions keep being portrayed as Else=
vier&#39;s
honest attempts to facilitate rather than hamper sharing. One particularly
interesting one that I have not yet deconstructed (but that the attentive
reader of the latest Elsevier documentation will have detected) likewise mo=
ots
all Elsevier OA embargoes even more conveniently than depositing all papers=
 in
Arxiv -- but I leave that as an exercise to the reader.

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

So Alicia, if Elsevier &quot;admires [my]
vision,&quot; let me invite you to consult with me about present and ↵
future=
 OA
policy conditions. I&#39;ll be happy to share with you which ones are ↵
logic=
ally
incoherent and technically empty in today&#39;s virtual world. It could ↵
sav=
e
Elsevier a lot of futile effort and save Elsevier authors from a lot of use=
less
and increasingly arbitrary and annoying nuisance-rules.

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">Best wishes,</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><span lang=3D"EN-US" ↵
style=3D"font-family:Arial;colo=
r:rgb(38,38,38)">=C2=A0</span></p>

<p class=3D"MsoNormal"><b><span ↵
lang=3D"EN-US" style=3D"font-family:Arial;c=
olor:rgb(38,38,38)">Stevan Harnad</span></b><span ↵
style=3D"font-family:Aria=
l"></span></p>

</div>

--001a11357bd08e1c610516ec234c--

--      
To unsubscribe from the BOAI Forum, use the form on this page:
http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/boai-forum

boaiforum messages

[BOAI] Elsevier: Trying to squeeze the virtual genie back into the physical bottle

[BOAI] Re: Elsevier: Trying to squeeze the virtual genie back into the physical bottle