Gli editori scientifici contro ResearchGate: “ti facciamo un’offerta che non potrai rifiutare”

La Benché il tono della lettera (firmata dallo studio legale internazionale Lenz Caemmerer) sia più quello di una proposta di collaborazione (ha infatti come oggetto “STM proposal – RG platform to become consistent with usage and access rights for article sharing”), ad un’attenta lettura si atteggia più da lettera di diffida vera e propria, che per di più impone una scadenza molto stretta: ResearchGate è infatti invitata a prendere una decisione e rispondere entro il prossimo 22 settembre.
Riporto di seguito la parte della lettera che indica puntualmente i termini dell’accordo transattivo proposto dai legali di STM.
Staremo a vedere con estrema curiosità gli esiti della vicenda in questi prossimi giorni.
C’è da dire che questo sembra davvero un grosso nodo che sta arrivando al pettine dopo molto tempo in cui molti hanno segnalato l’anomalia della situazione. Tra questi molti vi è ad esempio Elena Giglia che ne ha parlato chiaramente in molte sue presentazioni (segnalo ad esempio quella dello scorso maggio a Torino: vedi video e slides) e nei capitoli da lei curati nel libro Fare Open Access (scarica il libro liberamente).

Ecco i termini della proposta di STM; l’intera lettera è disponibile sul sito Elsevier.com.

STM extends this offer to you as follows:

• RG’s users could continue “claiming”, i.e. agreeing to make public or uploading documents in the way they may have become accustomed to with RG’s site. An automated system, utilizing existing technologies and ready to be implemented by STM members, would indicate if the version of the article could be shared publicly or privately. If publicly, then the content could be posted widely. If privately, then the article would remain available only to the co-authors or other private research groups consistent with the STM Voluntary Principles. In addition, a message could be sent to the author showing how to obtain rights to post the article more widely. This system could be implemented within 30-60 days and could then handle this “processing” well within 24 hours. Open Access articles, particularly those under a CC-BY licence, can of course be shared in many different ways and hence would not fall under this system.
• Researchgate and STM could work together to improve user communication around posting policies which would include references to the informational STM-sponsored site www.howcanIshareit.com and would generally note that for non-OA content, most journals do not permit the public posting of the final version of a journal article.
• For the large number of articles (final versions/proofs) that are currently hosted on RG’s site without authorization or permission and which are being made available publicly, STM is able to offer a two-pronged solution:
• For content posted before September 2016, STM members would grant permission for you to keep such material available until the end of June 2018, to enable the parties to review and assess whether such content could remain publicly available and under what terms; and
• For content posted on or after September 2016, but before the new system above is implemented, STM and RG would work together to assess the number of final versions of articles posted without authorization or permission. RG and STM would be using methods that STM and its members have been reviewing and testing and which STM believe can identify and remove such content easily and accurately. STM believe both parties can implement this before the end of this year.
• Finally, STM members expect as part of this arrangement another important commitment from you and this relates to preserving the academic record: Specifically, RG would end its extraction of content from hosted articles and the modification of any hosted content, including any and all metadata. It would also mean an end to Researchgate’s own copying and downloading of published journal article content and the creation of internal databases of articles.