Peter Suber - Google+ - Weakening the OA policy in the EU Yesterday…

"Yesterday the TransAtlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) blogged a helpful update on the steady weakening of the proposed open-access policy in the EU. (Thanks to +glyn moody for the alert.) I posted a comment. But because my comment is still under moderation, I'm cutting the delay by posting another copy of my comment here."    [Comment] "I have two kinds of problem with the current draft.  First, it provides a loophole allowing publishers to opt out at will: 'Subject to any restrictions due to the protection of intellectual property….' There are easy, battle-tested ways to close that loophole. For example, the NIH and Wellcome Trust require grantees to retain the non-exclusive rights needed to authorize OA; hence, they may authorize OA without appealing to publishers. This loophole was apparently in the original Horizon2020 proposal, and not added in a recent amendment.  Second, this key passage is vague: 'With regard to dissemination through research publications, open access shall be mandatory….Open access to research publications that result from research funded under Horizon 2020…, shall be eligible for reimbursement.'  Because of the vagueness, we can’t easily tell whether OA is mandatory only when delivered by 'research publications' (journals). If so, then this is a gold OA mandate, which is vastly inferior to the green OA mandate in the original Horizon2020 plan. Moreover, to say that a publication is 'eligible for reimbursement' presupposes that all OA journals charge publication fees (or article processing charges, APCs), when today most OA journals charge no fees at all. Moreover, it promises money that will induce no-fee journals to start charging fees. If the amended plan has really dropped the green OA mandate, added a gold OA mandate, and created incentives for no-fee journals to charge fees, then it’s distinctly worse than the original. Moreover, it’s worse in ways that show the influence of the RCUK-Finch plan in the UK. For my detailed critique of the RCUK-Finch plan, on precisely these points, see my article from September 2012 [ http://goo.gl/uv2wx ]."