Fool's Gold: Publisher Ransom for Freedom from Publisher Embargo?

Bob Campbell wrote on the Wiley blog:

"Stevan accuses me of much conflation yet he himself conflates APCs and subscriptions when commenting on double-dipping. APCs are not paying for the ‘same articles’ paid for by subscriptions. Publishers have always charged separately for different services/products. For example, a medical journal may charge a pharmaceutical company for reprints, advertising space and subscriptions. These are priced separately and charged separately, and accounted for separately in the publisher’s financial management of the title. The pharmaceutical company does not demand that the cost of buying advertising space is offset against any library subscriptions."

Bob Campbell defends double-dipping by citing journal charges for the purchase of reprints, advertising and subscriptions. That's all fine.

But what we are discussing here is the cost of publication, not of extra products or services.

Worldwide institutional subscriptions pay the cost of publication (in full, and fulsomely). It is not at all clear what extra product or service is being paid for when an author pays for hybrid Gold OA (for the paper he has given the publisher for free, to sell).

Of course it's an extra source of revenue to the hybrid Gold publisher to force the author to pay that extra money (for whatever it is that they are paying for). And let there be no doubt that the payment is indeed forced (if the hybrid Gold publisher embargoes Green). Is the extra "service," then, exemption from the publisher-imposed Green OA embargo?

(Note: If the publisher is among the 60% who endorse immediate Green OA, then none of my objections matter in the least, and I couldn't care less if the publisher earns the extra revenue from those authors who are silly enough to pay for hybrid Gold OA when they could have had the same, cost-free, by just providing Green OA.)

But the publisher who embargoes Green and then pockets the extra revenue derived from hybrid Gold, over and above subscriptions, without even reducing subscription charges proportionately, is indeed charging twice for publication, i.e., double-dipping (and offering absolutely nothing in return except freedom from the publisher's own Green OA embargo).

Subscriptions pay the cost of publication. Print reprints are an extra product. And adverts are an extra service. But hybrid OA is merely fool's gold, if paid unforced. And if forced by a publish embargo, there is a word to describe the practice, but I will not use it, as a publisher has already once threatened to sue me for libel if I do… So let's just call it double-dipping, with no extra product or service...

Alice Meadows (Social Relations at Wiley, and one of the "chefs" in SSP's Scholarly Kitchen) replied:

"Most major publishers, including Wiley, now have a policy on subscription pricing for hybrid journals (aka double dipping). Ours can be found here."

As I have already pointed out in my reply to Bob Campbell, above, what matters incomparably more (to research, researchers, and the tax-payers who fund them) than whether or not a hybrid Gold publisher double-dips is whether the publisher embargoes Green -- because when a hybrid Gold publisher embargoes Green, authors who want to make their article immediately OA are forced to pay for hybrid Gold -- with nothing in exchange for the money except freedom from the embargo. (Any added frills co-bundled with it were not asked for, hence certainly no justification for being forced to pay for immediate OA in order to be freed from a publisher-imposed embargo.)

Wiley-Blackwell is among the 40% of publishers that embargo Green OA. Hence (unlike a hybrid Gold publisher like Cambridge University Press, which does not embargo Green) Wiley-Blackwell is forcing authors to pay for hybrid Gold OA as the only way to provide immediate OA to their articles. That the extra hybrid Gold revenue (despite Bob Campbell's attempt to justify hybrid Gold revenue as not constituting double-dipping at all) is not in fact being double-dipped by Wiley -- but given back as a rebate to all subscribing institutions -- is no consolation for the author who has to pay it, in full, hence again no justification for being forced to pay for immediate OA in order to be freed from a publisher-imposed embargo. (Hybrid Gold authors did not ask to subsidize worldwide institutional subscription prices with their individual payment.)

Using OA embargoes to guarantee current subscription revenues is not a fair or acceptable means of transition to universal, affordable, sustainable OA and will inevitably be exposed and seen to be exactly what it is: an attempt by (part of) the publishing community to hold the research community hostage to sustaining their current subscription revenues -- hence over-priced (and potentially double-dipped) Fool's Gold, paid over and above what must continue to be paid by institutions for subscriptions -- instead of allowing Green OA to induce the natural evolution toward post-Green Fair Gold.