As I said, a growing number are changing their policy. Some (admittedly a
minority) don't ask for copyright transfer, but just a licence - though
others argue convincingly that they are better able to protect the author's
own rights in cases, for example, of plagiarism if they do hold copyright.
Considerably more do allow authors (a) to post their work pre and/or post
publication, and (b) to re-use it in their own institution and in their own
other works. This is all covered in our recent survey
It takes time to change publishers' attitudes, but I believe they are
changing - and not-for-profit publishers are in the vanguard
Sally
Sally Morris, Secretary-General
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
Phone: 01903 871686 Fax: 01903 871457 E-mail: sec-gen_at_alpsp.org
ALPSP Website
http://www.alpsp.org
----- Original Message -----
From: "Subbiah Arunachalam" <subbiah_a_at_YAHOO.COM>
To: <AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG>
Sent: Monday, September 08, 2003 4:06 AM
Subject: Re: Public Access to Science Act (Sabo Bill, H.R. 2613)
> Dear Sally,
>
> In which case why were publishers insisting on
> transferring copyright ll these days and even asking
> authors to pay when they wanted to reproduce figures
> (originally published in papers published in journals)
> in books (they wrote subsequently)?
>
> Regards.
>
> Arun
>
>
> --- Sally Morris <sec-gen_at_alpsp.org> wrote: >
> Actually, I disagree with your statement that "...
> > publishers are likely ...
> > to try to contest it [authors not signing (c)
> > transfer] if it risks becoming
> > the majority case". It's my impression that the
> > number of publishers who do
> > not require copyright transfer is growing, as they
> > realise that they can do
> > just about everything they need to do to safeguard
> > their business without
> > it, given a suitably crafted agreement. Even those
> > who do normally require
> > copyright transfer accept that they can't always get
> > it - not only in the
> > case of Govt authors, but also with employees of
> > certain types of corporate;
> > this certainly doesn't stop them publishing such
> > papers. What they can't
> > do without copyright - as Marty Blume of APS has
> > convincingly pointed out -
> > is to act quite so rapidly or decisively to protect
> > an author's interest in
> > cases of plagiarism or other infringements.
> >
> > Sally
> >
> > Sally Morris, Secretary-General
> > Association of Learned and Professional Society
> > Publishers
> > South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West
> > Sussex BN13 3UU, UK
> >
> > Phone: 01903 871686 Fax: 01903 871457 E-mail:
> > sec-gen_at_alpsp.org
> > ALPSP Website http://www.alpsp.org
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Stevan Harnad" <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
> > To: <AMERICAN-SCIENTIST-OPEN-ACCESS-FORUM_at_LISTSERVER.SIGMAXI.ORG>
> > Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 5:05 PM
> > Subject: Re: Public Access to Science Act (Sabo
> > Bill, H.R. 2613)
> >
> >
> > > On Fri, 5 Sep 2003, Sally Morris made a very good
> > point:
> > >
> > > > Stevan Harnad wrote:
> > > >sh> "Most of the existing 24,000 journals
> > would not
> > > >sh> accept to publish public-domain texts"
> > > >
> > > > I think this is probably inaccurate. I would
> > guess that practically all
> > of
> > > > those journals do publish works which are
> > currently governed by the
> > Public
> > > > Domain status of US Government works.
> > >
> > > Sally is quite right to point out that I had
> > overlooked the fact that many
> > > publishers are already at home with the fact that
> > a certain percentage
> > > of their authors cannot sign copyright transfer
> > agreements because they
> > > are government employees. Effectively, the Sabo
> > Bill, if it passed, would
> > > simply increase the percentage of such authors. So
> > it was incorrect on
> > > my part to say that they would not accept to
> > publish them: Given the
> > > percentage of journal content that is based on US
> > funded research, they
> > > would be forced to.
> > >
> > > But the Bill has not passed yet, and the
> > publishers (and authors) will
> > > still have their say. The percentage of authors
> > who did not sign copyright
> > > transfer in the past (for this reason, or even for
> > other reasons)
> > > was small enough so that publishers could discount
> > it as statistical
> > > variation. But publishers are likely, I think, to
> > try to contest it if it
> > > risks becoming the majority case. Do they have a
> > valid argument?
> > >
> > > I think they do, for the simple reason that if the
> > public-domain
> > > constraint is being introduced in order to create
> > open access, then it is
> > > a far stronger constraint than it needs to be.
> > Merely forcing publishers
> > > to allow authors to self-archive accomplishes the
> > very same goal in a
> > > far less radical and risky way -- for both
> > publishers and authors.
> > >
> > > For authors, putting their texts into the public
> > domain leaves them
> > > less protected from plagiarism and
> > text-alteration. For publishers,
> > > a large increase of public-domain content could
> > easily threaten
> > > their viability. In this day and age, all we have
> > to imagine is that
> > > another copycat company could systematically (and
> > legally) harvest and
> > > aggregate open-access public-domain contents as
> > soon as they appear, and
> > > immediately offer them, at cut-rate prices, both
> > online and on-paper. Why
> > > subscribe to journal X, which published the
> > contents, if you can subscribe
> > > to journal or aggregator Y for the same contents,
> > at a far lower
> > > price? (US funded research is a huge chunk of many
> > journals'
> > > contents. That's why this Bill is so important.
> > But that's also why it's
> > > so important that it should avoid overkill.)
> > >
> > > Wouldn't exactly the same risk be there if instead
> > of mandating that the
> > > contents be public-domain, the Bill mandated only
> > that they be
> > > open-access? Definitely not. With just open
> > access, copyright continues to
> > > be asserted, whether the author transfers it to
> > the publisher (retaining
> > > only the open-access self-archiving right) or
> > merely licenses the content,
> > > retaining the copyright. Self-archived contents
> > cannot be harvested and
> > > re-sold, online or on-paper. The publisher (or
> > author) could immediately
> > > take legal action against that, as before.
> > Self-archiving is the
> > > prerogative of the author, not of third parties,
> > and it does not even
> > > include the *author's* right to sell or re-sell
> > his own texts (that has
> > > to be negotiated separately, as always, if
> > copyright is transfered).
> > >
> > > The self-archiving right is merely the author's
> > right to make his own
> > > full-text freely accessible online to any would-be
> > user on the web,
> > > worldwide. That means any individual user,
> > webwide, can read it
> > > on-screen, navigate it computationally, download
> > it, save it, and print
> > > it off. It also means that harvesters like google
> > can link to, invert
> > > and index the full text but they cannot -- if it
> > is copyrighted --
> > > re-sell the text, online or on-paper (otherwise
> > they would effectively
> > > become the rival publisher mentioned above).
> > >
> > > Now we come to a delicate point that it is best if
> > all parties --
> > > open-access advocates and adversaries alike --
> > face up to squarely
> > > and frankly : Although it is true that mandating
> > only open-access rather
> > > than public-domain entails far less risk for
> > publishers (and authors), it
> > > is not true that it entails *zero* risk for
> > publishers. Whereas putting
> > the
> > > contents into the public domain would allow --
> > even invite -- attempts to
> > > undercut the publisher's business, making the
> > contents openly accessible
> > > online could eventually have a similar effect,
> > indirectly: For whereas
> > > with public-domain contents, rival cut-rate
> > publishers could legally
> > > capture the publisher's market, it is conceivable
> > that with open-access
> > > contents the demand for the publisher's version
> > would simply shrink,
> > > because users could could get everything they
> > needed using the open-access
> > > version.
> > >
> > > There is no point denying that this could be the
> > eventual effect
> > > of the Sabo Bill even if it mandated only
> > open-access rather than
> > > public-domain. The glue of OAI-interoperability
> > > http://www.openarchives.org/ for all self-archived
> > research means that
> > > eventually all users would have the option of
> > accessing all research
> > > journal content for free from one global virtual
> > OAI
> === message truncated ===
>
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Received on Thu Sep 11 2003 - 12:28:03 BST