Why Copyright Reform Must Come After Open Access, Not Before

1. Open access means free online access

2. The target content of the Open Access (OA) Movement is peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly journal articles

3. All such articles, without exception, are author give-aways, written solely for research usage and impact, not for royalty revenues

4. Other kinds of content -- books, music, video, software -- are mostly not author give-aways.

5. Hence there is an immediate solution for OA's target content and authors, and that is for research institutions and research funders worldwide to mandate that all articles must be made OA by self-archiving the author's final.

6. Most journals already endorse immediate OA self-archiving by their authors.

7. There is a solution (the repository's semi-automated "email eprint request" button) even for the minority of journal articles whose authors wish to abide by a publisher embargo on OA.

8. Hence it is a great strategic mistake to insist on copyright renegotiation or reform before mandating OA self-archiving.

9. Globally mandated OA will help facilitate and accelerate copyright reform.

10. But trying to get global copyright reform first will only retard OA.