From: leo waaijers <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 2015 09:58:03 +0200

Sue,

In the Netherlands we just settled exactly the model you describe. Our
new hybrid licenses are simply a continuation of the classical big
deals with the proviso that published articles are circulated on the
internet with a CC-by licence. It concerns national multi-year
licences between the university association and heritage publishers.
Readers and authors do not pay for content access or creation.
Libraries and publishers have no hassle with authorised users or
passwords. Springer succeeded in negotiating a one-off price increase
of 6% as a compensation for the potential loss of company
subscriptions. From there they resume their annual price indexing. The
same deals are in the making with Sage, Wiley and Oxford University
Press. Only Elsevier is stubborn so far.

I don't see how this model prevents corruption and mediocracy better
than one of the current models. Also, you say publishers can not run
away with profits to the same extent they do currently. Well, actually
they do. Or even better as a higher revenue is combined with a simpler
distribution process.

If this becomes the new open access world, publishing will be way more
expensive than the big deals ever were. Not only comes the transition
of the big deals into hybrid licences with a price increase, next to
that academia has to pay the real OA publishers (PLoS, etc.) as well.

Academia is simply no party for the ogre publishers. The only way out
is to make them eat each other, i.e. create a market situation and
make them compete. Open Access has the potential to do so, contrary to
the subscription world where publishers were copyright monopolists.
Let's use the opportunity.

Leo Waaijers.



Op 4-10-2015 om 22:18 schreef LIBLICENSE:

From: Sue Gardner <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 2015 14:40:29 +0000

Ari,

Thank you very much for your comments. I agree that the whole system
needs to be reconsidered. The current system invites corruption and
mediocrity and does not serve readers nor authors. The only entity
that invariably does well in the current system is publishers.

In lieu of rehashing my detailed thoughts on this the list, the
synopsis is: readers and authors should not pay for content creation
or access, funders (public and private) should pay publishers
directly, and institutions and aggregators should be not-for-profit
middlemen/providers. In this scenario, readers and authors pay
indirectly in a distributed fashion by paying taxes and supporting
businesses that pay the for-profit publishers. Publishers in this
scenario are accountable directly to funders, and can not run away
with profits to the same extent as they do currently. It's a closed
loop.

Libre vs. gratis is an entirely separate issue, and is just as
salient, but does not advance the economic discussion directly.

Sue Gardner

Sue Ann Gardner, MLS
Scholarly Communications Librarian
Discovery and Resource Management
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, Nebraska 68588-4100 USA
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