del-fi • A Fool's Errand, Annotated

"So, I have a commentary published in Nature this month about the importance of using a CC-BY license to achieve full open access. I requested the article be made freely available as part of my agreement with Nature, but they paywalled it anyway. It’s freely available now but not until after some embarrassing email and twitter hassling. I am not particularly mad at any of the parties involved. It just points out the power of the default switch being closed, and how hard it is, even when you’ve negotiated an agreement, to flip it to open. It points out the weakness of the author in negotiation with the journal. Maybe I’m the fool in the fool’s errand. Also, in the search for brevity that print journals enforce, I didn’t get to be as granular as I wanted. My quarrel is with the publishing industry’s attempt to write a new license and I have no wish to lump those with whom I have a philosophical disagreement with those OA advocates who sincerely dislike CC BY, like Heather Morrison or many in humanities, into the same pool.  Anyway. Below are references for key points I make in the commentary ..."