Open Access: What Comes With the Territory

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SUMMARY: Downloading, printing, saving and data-crunching come with the territory if you make your paper freely accessible online (Open Access). You may not, however, create derivative works out of the words of that text. It is the author's own writing, not an audio for remix. And that is as it should be. Its contents (meaning) are yours to data-mine and reuse, with attribution. The words themselves, however, are the author's (apart from attributed fair-use quotes). The frequent misunderstanding that what comes with the OA territory is somehow not enough seems to be based on conflating (1) the text of research articles with (2a) the raw research data on which the text is based, or with (2b) software, or with (2c) multimedia -- all the wrong stuff and irrelevant to OA.

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Peter Murray-Rust's worries about OA are groundless. Peter worries he can't be be sure that:

"I can save my own copy (the MIT [site] suggests you cannot print it and may not be allowed to save it)"

Pay no attention. Download, print, save and crunch (just as you could have done if you had keyed in the text from reading the pages of a paper book)! [Free Access vs. Open Access (Dec 2003)]

"that it will be available next week"

It will. The University OA IRs all see to that. That's why they're making it OA. [Proposed update of BOAI definition of OA: Immediate and Permanent (Mar 2005)]

"that it will be unaltered in the future or that versions will be tracked"

Versions are tracked by the IR software, and updated versions are tagged as such. Versions can even be DIFFed.

"that I can create derivative works"

You may not create derivative works. We are talking about someone's own writing, not an audio for remix, And that is as it should be. The contents (meaning) are yours to data-mine and reuse, with attribution. The words, however, are the author's (apart from attributed fair-use quotes). Link to them if you need to re-use them verbatim (or ask for permission).

"that I can use machines to text- or data-mine it"

Yes, you can. Download and crunch away.

This is all common sense, and all comes with the OA territory when the author makes his full-text freely accessible for all, online. The rest seems to be based on some conflation between (1) the text of research articles and (2a) the raw research data on which the text is based, and with (2b) software, and with (2c) multimedia -- all the wrong stuff and irrelevant to OA).

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum