Heidelberg Appeal Peeled

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      Deutsche Übersetzung von Ben Kaden

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Professor Eberhard Hilf has noted that the drafter of the Heidelberg Appeal (a double-barrelled petition directed indifferently both against google book-scanning and against providing Open Access to research journal articles in Germany), Professor Roland Reuss, himself provides open access to his own journal articles:

EH: "Just to add: Mr. Reuss, in his role as Professor of history, has of course posted digital copies of all his scholarly articles on his institutional server (with a link to the publisher for ordering a printed copy if wished).

"This is Kafkaesque: Lying on one's back, one says, just as the lobbyists do, that OA is the "devils' gift," whereas standing on one's feet as a scholar, one provides OA!

"By the way, Reuss's research field is Kafka."

What has happened, is that Professor Reiss has made two fundamental confusions: He has confused (1) Open Access (which concerns journal articles) with google book-scanning, and he has confused (2) author-intended give-aways with author-unintended rip-offs.

It is quite astonishing that a scholar rushes to draft a petition rather than first gathering a clear understanding of what he is petitioning about.

To paraphrase Professor Hilf (who puts it in his own colorful way), this is the downside of the internet (if not also of the scholarly intellect), which can do so much good when used in a rational, rigorous way, and so much harm when used wrecklessly and unreflectively.

Below is a clause by clause critique of Professor Reuss's Heidelberg Appeal.

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THE FREEDOM TO PUBLISH AND THE PROTECTION OF COPYRIGHT

(a petition launched in Germany by Roland Reuss, U. Heidelberg)

"Currently the fundamental right of authors vouched for in the constitution to publish freely and of their own volition is under considerable attack and sustained threat."

This blanket statement about “authors” in general completely conflates (1) legitimate worries about consumer piracy of authors’ non-giveaway writings (such as books written for royalty) with (2) the author give-away of peer-reviewed research journal articles, which is what the Open Access movement is about.

Nor are authors’ rights to publish whatever they wish, wherever they wish, in any way under attack, or at issue.

"At the international level, intellectual property is being stolen from its producers to an unimagined degree and without criminalisation through the illegal publication of works protected by German copyright law on platforms such as GoogleBooks and YouTube. "

This refers to consumer piracy of authors’ non-give-away writings, a subject of legitimate concern, but completely unrelated to the movement for Open Access to researchers’ give-away journal articles”

"At national level, the so-called “Alliance of German Scientific Organisations” (members: Wissenschaftsrat, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, Leibniz-Gesellschaft, Max Planck-Institute etc.) is propagandising for wide-ranging interference with the freedom of the press and the freedom to publish, the consequences of which are contrary to the basic law."

This refers to the efforts by these institutions to make peer-reviewed research journal articles Open Access – freely accessible online -- so that they can be read, used, applied and cited by all would-be users and not just by those whose institutions can afford to subscribe to the journal in which they were published. This is all author give-away writing, for which the author does not seek or get (and never has sought or gotten) a penny of royalty from sales revenue; the author seeks only maximal uptake and impact. Freedom of the press and freedom to publish are in no respect at issue here.

"Authors and publishers reject all attempts to, and practices that, undermine copyright. That copyright is fundamental for literature, art and science, for the basic right to freedom of research and teaching, as well as for press freedom and the freedom to publish. In the future too, it must be writers, artists, scientists, in brief, all creative people themselves, who decide if and where their works should be published. Any constraint or coercion to publish in a certain form is as unacceptable as the political toleration of pirate copies, currently being produced in huge numbers by Google."

Authors are free to publish whatever they wish, wherever they wish. And no one is undermining copyright, particularly for non-give-away, royalty-seeking work (such as most books, and journalists’ fee-based articles), where the author’s copyright penalizes piracy.

But not all authors seek to sell their writing for royalty or fees. The 2.5 million articles a year published in the planet’s 25,000 peer-reviewed research journals (in all disciplines, countries and languages) are all creator give-aways, written solely for uptake and usage in further research. Their authors want copyright to protect their authorship and the integrity of their texts (e.g., from plagiarism or alteration), but they want to give away their texts free online so that all would-be users can access and use them.

There is no constraint whatsoever on these give-away authors: They are not royalty-seeking book-authors, fee-based journalists, or other creators of digital works for sale.

The funders of the research (including the tax-paying public whose money is being used to pay for the conduct of the research) and the employers of the researchers (universities and research institutions, who pay their salaries) also share these give-away authors' interest in maximizing the access and usage of their joint research output. “Publish or Perish” reflects the longstanding academic mandate (long predating the digital era) for scholars and scientists to conduct research and make public their findings, so they can be used and built upon, by other scholars and scientists, to the benefit of all, in the collective, cumulative growth of learned inquiry. These authors are already being rewarded, in their careers and their research support, for their research productivity as well as for the uptake and impact of their research findings. Open Access maximizes these.

It is for this reason that in the online era research funders and universities the world over – but not yet in Germany – are beginning to adopt policies that mandate that researchers provide Open Access to their (give-away) peer-reviewed research articles (not their [non-give-away] books!) by self-archiving them, free for all, on the web.

These Open Access mandates are needed not to force authors to give away their articles (they do that already, more than willingly) but to reinforce their inclination to make their give-away (published) articles freely accessible to all on the web.

This inclination needs reinforcement because some authors imagine that it is illegal for them to make their articles freely accessible online, others imagine that their journals will not allow it, and still others imagine that self-archiving entails a lot of work. The mandates formalize the fact that providing Open Access is legal, that at least 63% of journals already formally endorse authors making their articles Open Access immediately upon publication, and another 34% endorse it after a temporary embargo period (during which automatized email eprint requests can take care of immediate research usage needs) and that it takes only a few minutes to self-archive an article.

Dr. Reuss presumably knows all this, because he already self-archives his give-away articles to make them Open Access on the web too. He simply has not put two and two together, because he has conflated Open Access policies with google book-scanning and has not taken the trouble to do the research that would have made him realize that they are completely different things. Instead, he drafts this incoherent petition to treat both Open Access and google copyright issues as if they were the same sort of thing.

In contrast, international surveys of authors in all disciplines (humanities included) have repeatedly confirmed that 95% of authors would make their give-away journal articles OA (over 80% of them willingly) if their universities and/or funders were to mandate it. They need the mandates to give them the confidence and initiative to do it. And an appeal to the EC vastly larger than the Heidelberg Appeal has been signed by tens of thousands of researchers and their institutions petitioning the EC to mandate OA!

"Never in history has the number of publications, books, magazines and electronic publications been as large as it is today, and never has the freedom of decision of authors been guaranteed to such a high degree. The “Alliance of German Scientific Organisations” wants to obligate authors to use a specified mode of publication. This is not conducive to the improvement of scientific information."

The “mode of publication” is simply the mode of publication authors already use – publishing in the peer-reviewed journal of their choice – augmented by making the published article Open Access.

(In fairness, it must also be noted that there is some confusion among Open Access proponents too, about how they are advocating that articles be made Open Access. The “Green Road” to Open Access is for authors to publish their articles in the traditional journals of their choice, and then to make their peer-reviewed, accepted final drafts freely accessible online, by self-archiving them in their institution’s Open Access repository. The “Gold Road” to Open Access is for authors to publish their articles in an “Open Access journal,” which is a journal that makes all of its articles freely accessible online. The choice of journal, however, remains entirely up to the author. So what is being advocated is not a “mode of publication,” but a mode of access-provision – having published the article when and where the author chooses.)

Hence no one is proposing to constrain in any way authors’ choice in what to publish, when, where or how. Open Access mandates are concerned only with modes of maximizing access to the chosen mode of publication (and only for give-away peer-reviewed research articles).

"The undersigned appeal emphatically to the Federal Government and to the governments of the federal states for a resolute defence, with all the means at their disposal, of existing copyright and of the freedom to publish, to research and to teach. Politicians have the obligation to enforce, at national and international level, the individual rights and aspirations linked with the production of artistic and scientific works. The freedom of literature, art and science is a major constitutional asset. If we loose it, we loose our future."

Open Access is completely compatible with existing copyright. All it requires is that publishers should not try to deprive give-away authors of the right to make their give-away articles accessible online free for all, by self-archiving them, as Herr Reuss does. Why, then, is Herr Reuss petitioning against this author’s right under the confused banner of defending authors’ rights and freedom?

Stevan Harnad
American Scientist Open Access Forum