No further replies to Graham Triggs

[Stevan Harnad]

Anyone who has followed the tedious exchanges with Graham Triggs can find the replies to the few substantive points below by just re-reading the exchanges. The many ideological, hypothetical and irrelevant points too, but they are even less worth the effort. If Graham says something new, substantive and short, I am prepared to listen…

Stevan Harnad

On 2013-12-10, at 8:55 AM, Graham Triggs <grahamtriggs at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 7 December 2013 12:56, Stevan Harnad <amsciforum at gmail.com> wrote:
> 4. The majority of publishers with Green OA embargoes have an embargo of one year (though 60%, including Elsevier and Springer, have no embargo at all).
> 
> That's not true - Springer have adopted a 12 month embargo, and Elsevier require an embargo for non-voluntary deposits. (You can argue as much as you like about whether you can call a spade a fork, it doesn't change what the policy is).
> 
> Further, your claim of 60% seems to be entirely based on Sherpa/RoMEO data - which you usually provide links to. Except the classifications of RoMEO alone does not lead to saying that 60% of journals / publishers have no embargo, as when you read through the restrictions, what you CAN do may be listed as being subject to an embagro (as in the case of Elsevier and Springer).
> 
> The reasoning is that since free access after a year is a foregone conclusion, because of Green mandates, it's better if that free access is provided by publishers as Gold, so it all remains in their hands (navigation, search, reference linking, re-use, re-publication, etc.).
> 
> Actually, providing that a CTA has been signed as part of publishing the article, then the re-use and re-publication is only possible in accordance with the licence(s) that the publisher allows the content to be distributed under. So, regardless of whether the content is on another site or not, the [publisher granted rights via CTA] still retain that control.
> 
> Everyone gets Gold access after a year, and that's the end of it. Back to business as before -- unless the market prefers to pay the same price that it pays for subscriptions, in exchange for immediate, un-embargoed Gold OA (as in SCOAP3 or hybrid Gold).
> 
> Where do you get same price from? Estimates put subscription revenue per article at around $4,000-$5,000, whereas even high-price hybrid Gold is only $3,000 an article (with an industry average closer to $1,000 per article). 
> 
> Your claim regarding SCOAP3 might have more substance if it wasn't a library and funding agency led initiative to reduce the cost of publishing in physics - something that 20 years of "100% OA" in arXiv has failed to do.
> 
> And the inevitable is immediate Green OA, with authors posting their refereed, accepted final drafts immediately upon acceptance for publication. That version will become the version of record, because subscriptions to the publisher's print and online version will become unsustainable once the Green OA version is free for all.
> 
> If it was immediate Green OA of the refereed, accepted final draft (and it could be trusted that was the case), then there might be a chance of that happening. Might.
> 
> Not that print is necessarily under threat from that - if people want print [enough], then they would continue to pay for it, regardless of where else it may exist, or at what cost.
> 
> But that isn't what's happening, is it? Springer and Elsevier have introduced and/or lengthened embargoes in response to Green mandates (in Elsevier's case, the clause is specifically invoked by the presence of a mandate).
> 
> These embargoes are going to exist as long as publishers believe that they are necessary. And so, if you expect to continue to publish -at no author cost - in the journals you choose to now, you are only going to see embargoes disappear if people will continue to pay the subscriptions.
>  
> as Fair Gold (instead of today's over-priced, double-paid and double-dipped Fool's Gold) out of a fraction of the institutional annual windfall savings from their cancelled annual subscriptions.
> 
> And the evidence of double-dipping is?
> 
> On the other hand, not only has Wellcome stated there are indications of subscription price rises being constrained appropriately by limited uptake of hybrid Gold options, we have actual statements of subscription prices REDUCED because of Gold uptake in others:
> 
> http://www.nature.com/press_releases/emboopen.html
> http://static.springer.com/sgw/documents/1345327/application/pdf/Springer+Open+Choice_Journal+Price+Adjustments+2013.pdf
>  
> So both the 1-year embargo on Green and the 1-year release of Gold are attempts to fend off the above: OA has become a fight for that first year of access: researchers need and want it immediately; publishers want to hold onto it unless they continue to be paid as much as they are being paid now.
> 
> No, publishers are going to hold onto it unless they continue to be paid what they see as a fair return on their costs.
> 
> I can't ever see there not being a tension between academics and [commercial] publishers over profits. But changing the business model so that you pay upfront for publishing services can and will reduce the overall cost to the scholarly community.
> 
> However, it would be a mistake to just talk about first year of access. Ownership of materials is also important. Aside from the other opportunity costs, not retaining ownership is what allows these embargoes to exist.
> 
> Changing the predominant business model to upfront payment will deliver immediate access, ownership and lower costs. Failing to do so isn't going to deliver ownership or lower costs, and it's not going to deliver immediate access to anything other than pre-print material.
> 
> That's not just the evidenced in the last 20 years of open access provision, but in what is being attempted by SCOAP3 to deliver what Green OA alone can't.
> 
> G
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