UCOLASC Statement on Retention of Author Rights in License to Publish Agreements

“As discussed at our joint UCOLASC and Council of University Librarians (CoUL) meeting held on February 15, 2023, the Project Transform Negotiating Team (PTNT) and Project Transform Working Group (PTWG) have learned that many publishers are requiring University of California (UC) authors to sign “License to Publish” (LTP) agreements, which purport to grant exclusive rights to publishers and contravene the spirit of the open access (OA) policies and declarations strongly endorsed by UC faculty. We find this now-common practice to be unacceptable and therefore ask you to prioritize the issue of author rights and act on our behalf when you negotiate with publishers….”

EU ready to back immediate open access without author fees – Research Professional News

“The EU is ready to agree that immediate open access to papers reporting publicly funded research should become the norm, without authors having to pay fees, and that the bloc should support non-profit scholarly publishing models.

In a move that could send shockwaves through commercial scholarly publishing, the positions are due to be adopted by the Council of the EU member state governments later this month.

Various draft positions on scholarly publishing have been published by the January-June Swedish presidency of the Council in recent months, but with few clues as to how the potentially industry-shaking proposals were being received by fellow member state governments.

Now, however, the latest version published on May 4, which retains the most radical aspects of the earlier drafts, has been agreed “at technical level”, ready for research ministers to give it their assent at a meeting on 23 May….”

Springer Nature doublespeak | Plan S

“One thing that crops up in politics is situations where politicians attempt to explain a new law they know people won’t like or agree with, and do so by putting a spin on it that describes it in a way that doesn’t seem so bad. This is also true of the publisher Springer Nature’s (SN) information about self-archiving for papers containing rights retention (RR) language. The information is provided on the page about SN journal policies….

[Quoting SN] “Authors should note, however, that manuscripts containing statements about open licensing of accepted manuscripts (AMs) can only be published via the immediate gold open access (OA) route, to ensure that authors are not making conflicting licensing commitments, and can comply with any funder or institutional requirements for immediate OA.”

 

This is where things start to get tricksy. Translation – if the author assigns a prior licence to their AAM and submits the manuscript to a SN subscription journal that also offers an Open Access (OA) option (sometimes known as a hybrid journal), then the publisher will only accept it if the author pays for OA publication (sometimes known as ‘gold’ OA). Mind you, SN is not rejecting the manuscript outright; it’s just that they will ONLY accept it if the author pays. So by extension, if they don’t pay, SN won’t publish the paper, which amounts to a rejection. However hard I try, I can’t seem to tally “only be published via the immediate gold open access (OA) route” with “only accepting manuscripts on their editorial merit.” The wording is slippery here. Like those politicians, SN doesn’t ACTUALLY state that if you don’t, won’t or can’t pay, they will reject your paper. But in practice, that is exactly what they imply. This is pure smoke and mirrors….”

UK universities agree open access publishing deal with Springer Nature | Jisc

“Following a year-long negotiation led by Jisc, UK universities have agreed a new, three-year read and publish open access (OA) deal with Springer Nature.

The deal meets the sector’s requirements to reduce costs and to expedite full and immediate open access in more than 2,500 Springer Nature titles, including Nature, the Nature research journals, and the Palgrave portfolio. 

It also helps researchers and their institutions meet research funders’ open access requirements. 

Results of the consultation on the latest proposal from Springer Nature were conclusive, with all 110 respondents voting to accept the offer, although a large number did so ‘with significant reservations’.  

There were concerns around the high cost of publishing OA outside the agreement and the limited transparency, particularly with how Springer Nature’s article processing charges (APCs) are calculated.  

Comments were also raised around Springer Nature’s approach to author rights retention, given the publisher’s commitment to gold OA, which some respondents felt created barriers to equitable OA publishing worldwide….”

Rights Retention: from pilot to policy – Jisc

“Representatives from the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and King’s College London will share their experiences of developing and implementing rights retention pilots and policies at their institution….”

‘Significant reservations’ over Springer OA deal | Times Higher Education (THE)

UK universities have agreed a new three-year read-and-publish deal with Springer Nature, despite many expressing “significant reservations” over the high cost of publishing open access in prestige titles.

As part of the new deal with the German-British publisher announced on 3 April, universities will have unlimited open-access publishing in Springer and Palgrave hybrid titles, while free-to-read publishing will be available in Nature and Nature research journals, although this option will be restricted to a certain number of papers.

Based on modelling, this cap on Nature-branded titles would be “sufficient” for British institutions, said Jisc, the UK’s higher education IT consortium, which has been negotiating with Springer Nature on behalf of UK institutions for more than a year.

While the agreement would “result in real-term cost savings for all institutions” and was accepted by all universities that responded to a consultation, a large number had “significant reservations” about the deal, added Jisc.

These concerns centred on the high cost of publishing open access outside the agreement and limited transparency, particularly regarding how Springer Nature’s article-processing charges (APCs) are calculated, with gold open access for Nature priced at £8,490. Springer Nature was one of several major publishers – along with Elsevier – which opted in November not to participate in Plan S’ Journal Comparison Service, in which journals shared information about their costs and services.

Paul Ayris, pro-vice-provost at UCL (libraries, culture, collections, open science) told Times Higher Education that the sector would only “grudgingly” accept the new deal because it “bakes into the system the high prices that we’ve seen with subscriptions”.

“Those APCs of €9,500 are a huge amount to pay. It’s too much for one article, and that level seems to have been built into the new deal. Springer Nature can’t explain how they’ve arrived at this price, either,” he added.

Although libraries recognised this was the “best possible deal that could be achieved at the moment”, Dr Ayris said, the transformative deals agreed with publishers were not delivering the change that many academics or librarians had anticipated. He added that they would exacerbate global inequalities because poorer nations would be unable to pay high-cost APCs.

Other concerns included Springer Nature’s approach to author rights retention, which some respondents felt created barriers to equitable open-access publishing worldwide, Jisc said.

The deal with the world’s second-largest publisher comes after the rejection of a previous offer in February because of cost concerns, with UK universities also vetoing a proposed deal last year that would have required them to pay nearly £1 million extra.

Welcoming the new agreement, Stephen Decent, principal and vice-chancellor at Glasgow Caledonian University, said it would “further extend the reach and impact of UK research by providing open-access publishing in 2,500 Springer Nature journals”, which would lead to about 6,000 papers a year being published in a free-to-read format with the world’s second-biggest academic publisher.

“While this is an important deal that delivers concessions, the goal of fully accessible open research still eludes us,” added Professor Decent, who called for “a more inclusive and open research culture, where all contributions to research are valued, regardless of the type of output or where they are published”.

Carolyn Honour, chief commercial officer at Springer Nature, said the new deal would “for the first time” cover all Springer Nature journals and would also “open up access to UK research” and extend “publishing opportunities to a broader range of institutions and disciplines”.

The publisher would “remain committed to working transparently, through the publication of data and resources, and extensively with our global partners, to drive progress towards this goal”, added Ms Honour.

 

Open access regulation

“Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act (hereafter: CA) entitles researchers to share a short academic work without financial consideration for a reasonable period. To facilitate exercising this right, the VSNU (Association of Universities in the Netherlands) completed a successful pilot project as a part of the National Programme for Open Science (NPOS) in 2019. The participating researchers gave universities their permission to share short academic works. 

The pilot’s evaluation showed that the efficiency of the administrative procedures for researchers to grant permission (by two-way paper licence) is an obstacle to scaling up. The solution was found in converting the so-called opt-in approach into a tacit licence procedure with the possibility to opt-out. 

The universities, as the employer, warrant the participating researchers to pay for the possible costs in the case of a legal dispute with a publisher. Within the VSNU, the universities agreed to share the legal risks. 

Considering that: 

the Eindhoven University of Technology supports the importance of Open Access, thereby following Dutch government policy as laid down in the letter of the State Secretary for Education, Culture and Science dated 15 November 20131; 

Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act (CA) entitles researchers to share a short academic work without financial consideration following a reasonable period after publication; 

the University has an interest in the academic output of its staff members being easily retrievable and, with a view to being a good employer, wishes to facilitate that its staff members can optimally exercise their rights under Article 25fa CA; 

the University requires a tacit, non-exclusive licence from its staff members for the purpose as mentioned above…”

Europe’s academic publishing system must become sustainable and equitable – The Guild

“The Guild strongly supports the draft of the Council conclusions on scholarly publishing in its calls to support non-APC-based open-access models, have APC commensurate to publication services provided, and to ensure academic publishing remains aimed at research excellence and integrity. We fully endorse the Council’s recognition of the increasing costs of paywalls for access to scientific publications as well as scholarly publishing. Therefore, The Guild calls for the development of alternative models that do not charge fees to authors or readers.

The Guild also emphasises that the Member States must ensure researchers’ author’s retention rights and secondary publication rights and coordinate to harmonise the legislation across borders. The academic publishing system must prioritise the dissemination of high-quality research while upholding the principles of research integrity and academic freedom.

Finally, The Guild supports the Council’s recognition that researchers play a crucial role in the academic publishing ecosystem and that their contributions to the well-functioning of research communities should be better recognised in research assessment. We strongly encourage the creation of initiatives aiming to improve the quality, transparency, and efficiency of peer review mechanisms.”

The Politics of Rights Retention | hc:52287 | Humanities CORE

Abstract:  This article presents a commentary on the recent resurgence of interest in the practice of rights retention in scholarly publishing. Led in part by the evolving European policy landscape, rights retention seeks to ensure immediate access to accepted manuscripts uploaded to repositories. The article identifies a trajectory in the development of rights retention from something that publishers could previously ignore to a practice they are now forced to confront. Despite being couched in the neoliberal logic of market-centric policymaking, I argue that rights retention represents a more combative approach to publisher power by institutions and funders that could yield significant benefits for a more equitable system of open access publishing.