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by IanCal 3576 days ago
> What most likely will happen is that there will be a geoblocked EU repository/ies which will provide free access to research material.

I'd be absolutely amazed if this happens.

The current common setups for funding bodies which already require open access are:

1. Can't go behind a paywall, so money is included in the grant for publishing costs.

2. Can go behind a paywall, but a copy must be made available somewhere else (not as common).

I have no idea why they'd go about building a geoblocked repository, that sounds expensive and I cannot see what problem it actually solves.

1 comments

Well it's the question on who this "regulation" is going to target, if it is going to target publishers then it makes sense for publishers that work within the EU to simply allow Open Access from within the EU only, pretty much every content delivery solution has geo-blocking built in, so publishers already have this capability.

If it's going to target institutions/grant recipients then the only thing they need to do is allocate funds to pay for Open Access which is a bit silly and it doesn't solve the issue, if anything it can make it even worse because publishers could then squeeze authors for even more money because now the public is the one who pays the ransom.