German STM publishing giant Springer has blasted critics of its Open Choice initiative, saying that it is essential to "take the emotion out of the debate" and give authors and customers realistic options....In an exclusive interview with IWR, Springer's chief executive, Derk Haank, said Open Choice was a pragmatic solution that would reveal just how deep the demand for OA publishing is. "I'd be surprised if in five years' time more than 5-10% of our articles have been published by author-pays," he predicted.
(PS: I criticized Springer on August 6 for apparently designing the Open Choice program "more to generate low uptake, and ground a rebuke to OA advocates, than to test the waters in good faith." This reply by Haank tends to confirm that diagnosis.)
Open Choice has come in for criticism from OA vendors and bloggers for being overpriced and not offering 'pure' open access because Springer will retain copyright. But Haank countered his critics by saying: "...Copyright is not that important to us, but we are using it here as a mechanism to protect the author from having articles taken by other commercial publishers."
(PS: I made the copyright criticism on August 2. If we take Haank's claim at face value, then Springer is paternalizing authors instead of letting them choose between retaining copyright and letting Springer "protect" them from other commercial publishers. But it can hardly be taken at face value. How often do Springer authors have their articles taken by other commercial publishers?)
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/20/2004 01:54:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
