Re: Mandating OA: Don't Let the Best Be the Enemy of the Good

From: Stevan Harnad <amsciforum_at_GMAIL.COM>
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2008 20:13:58 -0500

On Tue, Dec 2, 2008 at 7:13 PM, Klaus Graf <klausgraf_at_googlemail.com>
wrote:

      Read carefully
      http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/4851871/
      and don't ignore that, although I am not a lawyer, I am a
      copyright
      expert in German law.


If the authors (and users) of the half million articles deposited in
Arxiv since 1991 had sought, believed and followed copyright experts'
advice in 1991, we would have 507,712 fewer OA articles today
(including 79,284 of them from Germany).

      I have given enough legal arguments at
      http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5193609/
      I didn't read from you any substantial legal argument
      rejecting my
      conclusions based on my knowledge of German copyright
      law.


The legal arguments are refuted by ongoing practice. (As Dr. Johnson
would say: "I refute it thus" [stroking the keys].)
 
      The button wasn't tested by ROMEO. You are manipulating
      the facts. If
      the success rate of the button is poor you cannot say
      that the rest of
      37 % will be reached by the button.


(I misunderstood you when you wrote:  "my few tests make it clear
that it is realistic not to speak of 37 % but let us say of 10 %."I
thought you were contesting the Romeo data on the 63%/37% split among
Green OA journals: But if you meant the success rate for the Button,
as I said, the deposit and mandate rate is simply far too small today
-- and authors are still far too uninformed about the button -- to
allow any credible estimate of the success rate of the button once we
approach universal IDOA mandating and hence universal Green OA.)

Stevan Harnad
Received on Wed Dec 03 2008 - 01:54:09 GMT

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