[bjeds]

As far as I know, Nature explicitly allow open access... if you pay extra for it.

They call it "open access" if I remember correctly and it's a couple of times more expensive than it already is.

Universities pay a lot of money to publish in these journals.

[robotresearcher]

I was referring to the traditional practice of authors distributing papers to anyone who asks, which is now turned up to 11 by arXiv. This is explicitly allowed by Nature. This is different to Open Access, in which Nature will serve my paper to others themselves, at upfront cost.

https://www.nature.com/nature-research/editorial-policies/se...

"Preprints

Nature Portfolio journals encourage posting of preprints of primary research manuscripts on preprint servers, authors’ or institutional websites, and open communications between researchers whether on community preprint servers or preprint commenting platforms. Preprints are defined as an author’s version of a research manuscript prior to formal peer review at a journal, which is deposited on a public server (as described in Preprints for the life sciences. Science 352, 899–901; 2016); preprints may be posted at any time during the peer review process. Posting of preprints is not considered prior publication and will not jeopardize consideration at Nature Portfolio journals. Manuscripts posted on preprint servers will not be taken into account when determining the advance provided by a study under consideration at a Nature Portfolio journal."