The Royal Society thereby pledges that it will not "double-dip" for hybrid Gold OA. The RS continues to collect subscription fees from institutions worldwide, but whatever additional revenue if gets from individual authors for hybrid Gold OA, it pledges to return as a subscription rebate to all subscribing institutions.

Yet this is not because the hybrid Gold OA rebate amounts to individual authors' full payments for Gold OA subsidizing the subscription costs of institutions worldwide. (The author's own institution only gets back a tiny fraction of its authors' Gold OA fee in its tiny portion of the worldwide subscription rebate.)

No. Whether the RS is indeed a fair player depends on whether RS authors have the choice -- between providing Gold OA by paying the RS that additional cost over and above what the world's institutions are already paying the RS in subscriptions -- or providing Green OA at no additional cost, by self-archiving their article free for all online.

For if the RS does not give its authors this choice, then it is certainly not a "fair player": It is holding RS authors who want to provide OA hostage to the payment of an additional hybrid Gold OA fee.

In 2010, however, the RS came down squarely on "the side of the angels", endorsing immediate, unembargoed Green OA self-archiving of the author's final refereed draft: http://j.mp/RSOANGELS

But now -- perhaps -- the RS seems to have adopted a 12-month embargo on Green OA (under the fell influence -- perhaps -- of the new Finch/RCUK OA policy?):

by ceasing to try to hold Green OA self-archiving hostage to sustaining the RS's subscription revenues at all costs.

There will be time for the RS to go Gold at a fair, affordable, sustainable price, single-paid instead of over-charged and double-paid, as now (with or without double-dipping) -- after Green has prevailed worldwide and made subscriptions no longer unsustainable.

But that will be post-Green Fair-Gold. What the RS (and other publishers, less venerable) are trying to use OA embargoes for today is to force authors to pay pre-emptively for pre-Green Fools-Gold, so as to ensure that their revenue streams do not shrink either way.

But shrink they must, because post-Green the only service the RS or any other research journal publisher will need to perform is the management of peer review in the online era.

And that only costs a fraction of what they are being paid now, with or without double dipping.

The RS "Membership Programme" -- like all hybrid Fools-Gold, is a Trojan Horse: http://j.mp/TRoaJan

On Mon, Jul 15, 2013 at 7:02 PM, LIBLICENSE <liblicense@gmail.com> wrote:

From: "Romano, Maria" <maria.romano@royalsociety.org>
Date: Mon, 15 Jul 2013 15:03:17 +0100

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Royal Society welcomes leading institutions to its Open Access Membership Programme
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The growing number of members since its launch early last year
demonstrates the success of the Royal Society’s Open Access Membership
Programme<http://royalsocietypublishing.org/site/librarians/membership.xhtml>,
as University of Cambridge, MIT and The University of Melbourne have
joined the programme along with 30 other institutions →
<http://royalsocietypublishing.org/site/librarians/allmembers.xhtml>.

The programme enables participating organisations to decrease the cost
of the article processing charge to their authors by 25%, along with
further promoting its open access publications and research output.

Institutions choosing to affiliate themselves to the prestigious
charity and support its open access initiatives can find out more by
visiting our membership
webpages<http://royalsocietypublishing.org/site/librarians/membership.xhtml>.

For more information on how your institution can support its
researchers with discounted open access article processing charges,
please contact marianne.haska@royalsociety.org.

In keeping with its role as the UK's national academy of science, The
Royal Society<http://royalsociety.org/> is committed to the widest
possible dissemination of research outputs. Hence since 2006, any
article can be published in open access under a Creative Commons
license<http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/> in any of its
prestigious journals<http://royalsocietypublishing.org/journals>,
including the fully gold journal Open
Biology<http://rsob.royalsocietypublishing.org/>.

Remaining a fair player, The Royal Society ensures that published open
access articles bearing a publication fee are deducted from
subscription prices through its Transparent Pricing Mechanism
<http://royalsocietypublishing.org/site/librarians/transparent_pricing.xhtml>.

---------------------------------
About the Royal Society
---------------------------------

The Royal Society is a self-governing Fellowship of many of the
world’s most distinguished scientists drawn from all areas of science,
engineering, and medicine. The Society’s fundamental purpose, as it
has been since its foundation in 1660, is to recognise, promote, and
support excellence in science and to encourage the development and use
of science for the benefit of humanity.

The Society’s strategic priorities emphasise its commitment to the
highest quality science, to curiosity-driven research, and to the
development and use of science for the benefit of society. These
priorities are:

1. Promoting science and its benefits

2. Recognising excellence in science

3. Supporting outstanding science

4. Providing scientific advice for policy

5. Fostering international and global cooperation

6. Education and public engagement

For further information please visit http://royalsociety.org or
http://royalsocietypublishing.org.

Follow Royal Society Publishing on Twitter at
http://twitter.com/RSocPublishing or on Facebook at
http://www.facebook.com/RoyalSocietyPublishing.FanPage.

Regards,
Sana Kazmi
Institutional Marketing Manager
The Royal Society
6-9 Carlton House Terrace
London SW1Y 5AG
royalsocietypublishing.org

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