[IP-OA_Forum] Fwd: Re: Germany's Bundesrat against OA

Anja Kersting <Anja.Kersting@uni-konstanz.de> · Mon, 14 May 2007 15:52:11 +0200

Liebe Liste,

wir wurden gebeten unten stehende Diskussion aus 

anderen Listen auch hier abzubilden:

On Sun, 13 May 2007, Armbruster, Chris wrote:
> ...the publishers' lobbyists on this occasion were successful
> - they had their position written into the Bundesrat opinion,
> almost to the letter.
>
> This Bundesrat opinion is bad news for OA...
> How come that toll access publishers had it all their way?
> ...how good are OA activists in addressing the concerns of
> policy makers and parliaments?
>
> There principally are two routes to OA -
> a) via the self-regulation of universities, libraries,
> science organisations and learned societies, or
> b) via political regulation.  decision-makers... providing
> 'conclusive evidence' that allows them to decide for you (and
> against the other side).
> Is the OA movement ready for this kind of adversarial politics?

Probably not, and probably no need. The research community (researchers,
their universities and their funders) can do it all amongst themselves
already. There is a simple way, if we can only get the research community
to listen, and understand, and act: The Immediate-Deposit/Optional-Access
Mandate removes the publishers and the publishing lobby from the decision
loop *completely*. Government intervention is not needed either.

    http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/71-guid.html
    http://openaccess.eprints.org/index.php?/archives/136-guid.html

All I can do is keep repeating this message, amidst all the hubbub and
indirection, hoping that it will be understood that all else becomes
moot if the research community itself (universities and funders) just
mandate ID/OA: Absolutely nothing else matters. Nothing can stop the
worldwide research community from doing it. And it will work. And it
will bring 100% OA very soon. Everything else just means years more of
the confusion and delay we have now. To reach for less, or for more,
is to get next to nothing. ID/OA is completely within our reach; all
we need do is grasp it, now.

Stevan Harnad

On Sun, 13 May 2007, Armbruster, Chris wrote:

> Dear Peter, dear all,
>
> The German Bundesrat is NOT against OA, but it is also not pro OA.
>
> The headline ('against OA') and summary on Heise
> Online presumably seeks to capture the drift of
> the Bundesrat deliberations, which are perceived
> as being less supportive of OA than the EC
> communication on scientific information (from February 2007).
>
> I urge you and anyone interested to study this
> case more closely. Strategically, it could be
> important to learn from this, because the
> Bundesrat - more specifically, its Committees for
> the EU, for legal policy and for economic affairs
> - explicitly reacted to the EC communication on scientific information.
>
> Recommendations of the Committees from 30 April:

> 

http://www.bundesrat.de/cln_051/SharedDocs/Drucksachen/2007/0101-200/139-1-07,templateId=raw,property=publicationFile.pdf/139-1-07.pdf 

>
>

> Prior position of the Bundesregierung 

(Federal Government) from 26 February:

> 

http://www.bundesrat.de/cln_051/SharedDocs/Drucksachen/2007/0101-200/139-07,templateId=raw,property=publicationFile.pdf/139-07.pdf 

>
>
> Agenda of the Bundesrat (scroll to TOP 34) the
> clarifies that this neither about legislation nor
> about a decision, but an opinion (Stellungnahme):

> 

http://www.bundesrat.de/cln_051/nn_8690/DE/parlamentsmaterial/to-plenum/833-sitzung/to-node.html?__nnn=true 

>
> The questions is, of course, what do we make of all of this?
>
> There is a prior Heise Online summary that

> captures the flavour of the deliberations and 

the shift quite well (I think):

> http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/89366
>
> My comment:
> 1. The opinion and commentary of the
> Bundesregierung (26 Feb) was reflective of the EC
> communication and highlighted organisational,
> technical, legal and economic issues.
> 2. In the Bundesrat this was narrowed to economic and legal issues.
> 3. I notice a resemblance (in spirit, if not in
> letter) between the concerns written down by the
> Bundesrat Committees and those of exclusive, toll
> access, content holding publishers as articulated
> in the recent white paper of stm, ALPSP and PSP.
> 4. If OA is defined as 'public provision' of free
> access then this jars with the prevailing (EC,
> political) focus on innovation, competitiveness and economic growth.
> => It is probably fair to say that the
> publishers' lobbyists on this occasion were
> successful - they had their position written into
> the Bundesrat opinion, almost to the letter. The
> irony is, of course, that exclusive copyright
> (transfer) favours business models that lead to
> monopoly rent-seeking. But these arguments did
> not feature in the Bundesrat. Instead, the
> publishers could even get the Bundesrat to
> acknowledge that online silos and exclusive retro
> digitisation (which, principally, enhances
> rent-seeking to the detriment of innovation and
> competition) is a useful contribution to enhancing access.
>
> In summary:
> - This Bundesrat opinion is bad news for OA - and
> thus deserves to travel fast. The OA movement
> does need to ask itself: How come that
> rent-seeking, toll access publishers had it all their way?
> - OA supporters have been happy to raise the
> stakes by targeting national and international
> policy makers (cf. EC petition). Now that
> attention is given to OA, how good are OA
> activists in addressing the concerns of policy makers and parliaments?
> - There principally are two routes to OA - a) via
> the self-regulation of universities, libraries,
> science organisations and learned societies, or
> b) via political regulation. If one decides to
> move into the political arena, then one needs to
> be firm on economic and legal detail, build a
> broad coalition (e.g. including major players of
> the new economy) and meet the expectations of the
> decision-makers of providing 'conclusive
> evidence' that allows them to decide for you (and
> against the other side). Is the OA movement ready
> for this kind of adversarial politics?
>
> Regards, Chris
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: SPARC Open Access Forum on behalf of Peter Suber
> Sent: Sat 5/12/2007 9:38 PM
> To: SPARC Open Access Forum
> Subject: [SOAF] Germany's Bundesrat against OA
>
> Yesterday Stefan Krempl published a story in

> Heise Online, "Bundesrat für umfassendere 

Volkszählung und gegen Open Access."

> http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/89635
>
> When I blogged it, I asked for the help of
> bilingual readers in grasping the details.

> 

http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/2007_05_06_fosblogarchive.html#8642127590487399314

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Anja Kersting
Universität Konstanz - Bibliothek
Projekt Open Access
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