From Nature:
Nature makes all articles free to view
Publisher permits subscribers and media to share read-only versions of its papers.
Annthea Lewis/Nature
Nature will make its articles back to 1869 free to share to be read online but not to be printed or downloaded.
All research papers from Nature will be made free to read in a proprietary screen-view format that can be annotated but not copied, printed or downloaded, the journal’s publisher Macmillan announced on 2 December.
The content-sharing policy, which also applies to 48 other journals in Macmillan’s Nature Publishing Group (NPG) division, including Nature Genetics, Nature Medicine and Nature Physics, marks an attempt to let scientists freely read and share articles while preserving NPG’s primary source of income — the subscription fees libraries and individuals pay to gain access to articles.
ReadCube, a software platform similar to Apple’s iTunes, will be used to host and display read-only versions of the articles' PDFs. If the initiative becomes popular, it may also boost the prospects of the ReadCube platform, in which Macmillan has a majority investment.
Annette Thomas, chief executive of Macmillan Science and Education, says that under the policy, subscribers can share any paper they have access to through a link to a read-only version of the paper’s PDF that can be viewed through a web browser. For institutional subscribers, that means every paper dating back to the journal's foundation in 1869, while personal subscribers get access from 1997 on.
Anyone can subsequently repost and share this link. Around 100 media outlets and blogs will also be able to share links to read-only PDFs. Although the screen-view PDF cannot be printed, it can be annotated — which the publisher says will provide a way for scientists to collaborate by sharing their comments on manuscripts. PDF articles can also be saved to a free desktop version of ReadCube, similarly to how music files can be saved in iTunes.
“We know researchers are already sharing content, often in hidden corners of the Internet or using clumsy, time-consuming practices,” said a statement by Timo Hannay, the managing director of Digital Science, a division of Macmillan that has invested in ReadCube. “At Digital Science we have the technology to provide a convenient, legitimate alternative that allows researchers to access the information they need and the wider, interested public access to scientific knowledge, from the definitive, original source,” Hannay said....MORE
