The following posting from Marc Couture spells out very explicitly the two ways in which the new RS policy on Green OA can  be interpreted. (This, for those who missed the subtlety, is precisely why I wrote "perhaps" in: "But now -- perhaps -- the RS seems to have adopted a 12-month embargo on Green OA...")
RE: On 2013-07-18, at 7:39 AM, Marianne Haska <marianne.haska@royalsociety.org> wrote:  
Replies below from a much objective Graham Triggs to Stephen Harnad
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Couture Marc <marc.couture@teluq.ca>
Date: Thu, Jul 18, 2013 at 11:01 AM
Subject: [GOAL] Re: [sparc-oaforum] Re: More Finch Fallout: "The Royal Society welcomes leading institutions to its Open Access Membership Programme"
To: "Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci)" <goal@eprints.org>

A “much objective” Graham Triggs (says Marianne Haska from the Royal Society) wrote:

“According to that resource [probably talking of http://royalsocietypublishing.org/site/authors/licence.xhtml] they [RS] have exactly the same policy that covers loading / depositing the postprint to any online resource - personal website, institutional website ore repository. The only distinction they make is that you can use the postprint internally, or email to colleagues without embargo. All online / systematic distribution is limited by the embargo period.”

I’m sorry, and at the risk of being considered not so “much objective” by certain parties involved, I found that Triggs’ description of the permissions applying to postprints is only one possible interpretation of the terms of the licence.

If I simply reformat the relevant part of the licence, without changing a word, it reads:

“You are free to:

- post [the author generated postprint] on Your (personal OR institutional) web site;

AND

- load it onto an (institutional OR not for profit) repository no earlier than 12 months from the date of first publication...”

According to this formatting, one concludes that the embargo applies to repositories but not to websites, which raises exactly the inconsistency Harnad points out.

As a general rule, when I’m faced with two possible, equally valid interpretations of the terms of a licence, I feel perfectly at ease to choose the one that suits me best. In this case, as long as the text of the license remains what it is now, I wouldn’t hesitate to post a postprint on any website hosted by my university at (or before) the date of publication.

As to Harnad’s argument that an institution’s repository is a (personal or institutional) website by another name, I think it applies where there is a functional integration of these websites and the institutional repository. This is the case in Southampton, as Harnad mentions, but also, as I found out, at Liège, where a hyperlink to the faculty member’s papers in the repository seems to appear automatically in faculty home pages (see, for instance, https://my.ulg.ac.be/MyULg/TR_xt/trombi.do?mode=view&key=U030247).

This is in fact one of the arguments used to convince researchers to deposit their papers in the institution’s repository: no more need to maintain a publication list on one’s website or home page, as it’s automatically taken in charge by the repository software.

Marc Couture


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