From: Heather Morrison <[log in to unmask]> Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2012 12:06:00 -0700 Some open access advocates insist on a narrow definition of open access as equivalent to the Creative Commons Attribution-Only license. Jan Velterop recently made this point in Liblicense under the thread Predatory Open Access Journals in CHE: http://listserv.crl.edu/wa.exe?A2=ind1203&L=LIBLICENSE-L&F=&S=&P=62827 As a long term open access activist and scholar, I have given this matter quite a bit of thought. With all due respect to my OA advocate colleagues, I do not believe that CC-BY is the best option even for strong (libre) forms of open access, and I would argue for a broader, more inclusive definition at any rate. In brief, my view is that while CC-BY superficially appears to be the expression of the BOAI definition of open access, in practice it has weaknesses that are problematic for open access. For this reason, it is my opinion that the best CC license for libre open access is Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Sharealike (CC-BY-NC-SA), as this protects open access downstream. I recognize that the current CC-NC definition is overly broad and hence problematic. However, I argue that the solution is for CC to improve the license rather than abandoning the noncommercial option. One of the reasons why I think CC-BY-NC-SA is actually a better fit with BOAI than CC-BY is because it would be more effective to achieve the vision of BOAI, e.g. "the sharing of the poor with the rich and the rich with the poor" than CC-BY. That is, CC-BY allows for the creation of for-pay derivatives that the CC-BY author (or their family, community, or country) could not afford. This would in effect be a one-way sharing of the poor with the rich. For this reason, I always recommend the use of NC for open access authors and publishers in the developing world. My argument is presented in more detail in the third chapter of my draft dissertation, which can be found here: http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/heather-morrison/open-thesis-draft-introduction-march-2011/ (search for open access and creative commons) While I argue that CC-BY-NC-SA is the best available license for the strongest form of open access, I also argue for a broader, more inclusive definition of open access. Free to read online with no other rights is a tremendous improvement over toll access that people cannot afford. One of Willinsky's most basic points in The Access Principle is exactly this broad, inclusive approach to open access. Authors, publishers, universities and research funders around the world work in many different contexts and it is not clear that there is a single approach that actually makes sense for everyone. Some publishers and journals work in areas where research funding is relatively plentiful and the grant amounts generally large enough to cover article processing fees. In other areas of scholarship, funding is less frequent and less generous. Some journals in these areas may be just barely covering costs with their subscriptions revenue and reluctant to move to full, immediate, libre open access for valid reasons. When these journals choose partial OA measures such as free access to back issues, that is a very fine thing. If we wish these journals to move to stronger forms of open access, I would suggest that it would be appropriate to find means of helping them figure out economic solutions to support a transition. If their chosen model is problematic, we should point this out and explain what the problem is. For example, Elsevier's Sponsored Articles is an expensive option which is essentially a copyright transfer to the publisher which leaves the author with In my blogspot, Articulating the Commons, I I argue that we do not yet have a complete answer to the question of how best to share our works, and that rather than rushing to find a solution, it would be optimal to open up a discussion to take place over many decades, around the world, involving as many people who are interested and willing to contribute, and taking into account a wide variety of perspectives, including non-western perspectives. http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.ca/2011/12/articulating-commons-leaderful-approach.html This topic has generated some lively discussion recently on the SPARC Open Access Forum, the open science list, scholcomm, and google's G+, in case anyone wishes to delve into the details of the debates. best, Heather Morrison, MLIS Doctoral Candidate, Simon Fraser University School of Communication http://pages.cmns.sfu.ca/heather-morrison/ The Imaginary Journal of Poetic Economics http://poeticeconomics.blogspot.com