21 Aug CUP Reverses Its Decision to Censor China Articles (Updated)
21.08.17
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Here is CUP’s statement:
Kudos to CUP for doing the right thing. And kudos to everyone — including Jan Klabbers — who took a public stand against CUP’s capitulation to Chinese pressure.
UPDATE: True to form, China is now censoring news of CUP’s decision not to censor!
I tried to post this yesterday on Jan Klabbers’ post, but it didn’t show up, so here’s a re-post FWIW — it’s just an explanation of something previously suggested elsewhere, in any event. 1. I agree that CUP should not back down to censorship, and this is a good result. 2. I don’t know all the facts, but to my understanding, China may still be able to block access to the articles even without CUP’s cooperation. It’s also my assumption that when CUP’s database is operating normally, it is subject to institutional access restrictions (or its articles are available for individual purchase only). 3. If that’s correct, it might be useful to see author agreements revised to reflect the *prospect* of blocking, certainly if it is by any publisher’s deal with authorities and perhaps otherwise. The idea is to diminish the attractiveness of blocking in the first place. . . kind of like a poison pill. If authors had a provision in their agreements indicating that, should the publisher ever agree to block access (without implying approval of that), the author would have the right to post and provide open access to the published article (as published, so above and… Read more »