Lisa Johnston, A Copyright Story, Physics and Astronomy Library News, April 22, 2009.
... I was accepted for publication earlier this month in a journal owned by [Taylor and Francis]. The "Transfer of Copyright Agreement" they sent was not great. It significantly limited my rights, namely it withheld:
the non-exclusive right to use, reproduce, distribute, and make derivative works of the article in all areas of my profession (not just teaching)
the ability to legally contribute this work, or some preprint form of it, to my university's institutional repository after an embargo period of 6-months (or other negotiable time period).
My first step was to send them the [University of Minnesota]'s author addendum. This is a document approved by the [Committee on Institutional Cooperation] and provided by each of the big 10 universities that reclaims some of the copyrights I mention above. ...
Rather than accepting the addendum, as other publishers have reportedly done, they sent me a second, secret copyright agreement that they "don't like to give out."
The appropriately named "Author or Company Owned Copyright Transfer" is an agreement that allows the publisher to use my work for the journal in this instance only and specifically states that the
Copyright of the manuscript remains in the author’s name and the author reserves all other rights.
So, bottom line, it was worth the trouble and it didn't hurt to ask (in this case). ...
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 5/14/2009 04:03:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
