A new MIT Libraries’ tutorial “Scholarly Publication and Copyright: Retaining Rights & Increasing the Impact of Research” is now available online, and it applicable to faculty at all universities.

* Part 1 focuses on how copyright law intersects with the publication process.

Download part 1 (5:38 min.)

* Part 2 reviews why you might want to retain rights when you publish and how you can do so.

Download Part 2 (9:47 min.)

* Part 3 provides information on increasing the impact of your research by making it available through open access channels.

Download Part 3 (8:55 min.)

Together, these three parts are intended to explain how copyright relates to publication agreements for research articles, and how authors can increase the impact of their work by negotiating to retain rights to post their articles on the web or reuse them in other ways.

This 3-part tutorial is also linked from MIT Libraries’ the scholarly publishing website, where these themes are developed in more depth.

MIT Library News, October 12th, 2007 by Ellen Duranceau

Georgia Harper has recently revised her web site Copyright Crash Course. Learn about copyright’s role in the flow of research and teaching, how to manage your own copyright (see Transitions entry about the CIC Author’s Addendum), your rights as a copyright holder, fair use and more….

Washington University has revised its author addendum. From the announcement on the WU scholarly communications blog:

What is the WU Amendment to Publication Agreement? The WU Amendment is a tool to allow authors to retain some rights to their work and is used as an addendum to a publisher’s copyright agreement. The WU Amendment enables authors to reuse their work (the final published version) for research and teaching efforts, allows for deposit in Becker Library’s DSpace digital repository and helps authors comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.

The WU Amendment to Publication Agreement now includes a clause that addresses the issue of what authors should do if a publisher does not return a signed copy of the agreement. With the revised WU Amendment, publication of the article by the publisher will be deemed as acceptance of the terms of the WU Amendment by the publisher. The new clause reads in Paragraph 6 as follows:

“In the absence of Publisher’s signature on this Amendment, Publication of the Article by the Publisher will be deemed acceptance of the terms of this Amendment by the Publisher.”

This new clause eliminates the “limbo” period for authors who do not receive a signed copy from publishers but their article is published. Publication of the article will be construed as acceptance of the terms in the WU Amendment.

A coalition of scholarly publishing groups released a “position paper” on balancing author and publisher rights in scholarly journals. The paper Author and Publisher Rights for Academic Use: An Appropriate Balance, was assembled by the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM), along with the Association of American Publishers Professional and Scholarly Publishing division (AAP PSP), and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP). The paper suggests that the needs of scholarly authors and the need for publishers to obtain copyright transfers or exclusive licenses can be balanced, and need not conflict.

“Academic research authors and their institutions should be able to use and post the content that such authors and institutions themselves provide for internal institutional non-commercial research and education purposes”—something most publishers allow—the paper states. Publishers, meanwhile, “should be able to determine when and how the official publication record occurs, and to derive the revenue benefit from the publication and open posting of the official record (the final published article), and its further distribution and access in recognition of the value of the services they provide.”

Despite what STM called “overheated” discussions of new models and practices, the scientific record is best-served, the paper emphasizes, by a professional publishing model. In that model, exclusive rights preserve the scientific record and ensure that journals are viable, thus supporting editing, peer review, and “electronic delivery and investments in such systems,” as well as supporting the administration of a copyright regime.

In a recent editorial in Scientific American however, researcher and consultant Alma Swan questions some of the core positions put forth by publishers and suggests individual authors, through self-archiving and rapid dissemination on the web, can take matters into their own hands. “Research is expensive enough that the world can scarcely afford an antiquated, inefficient, and high-cost system of information dissemination,” Swan writes. “The bickering over varied business models, and the side arguments over public access to publicly funded results, obscure a larger, more important question: Can open access—the fundamental change to a system where scientists no longer face barriers to accessing others’ work (or their own)—advance science?”

Swan argues yes. “While commercial publishers, scientific societies, and librarians struggle over business models and tough longer-term issues such as who will maintain the record of science in a digital age,” she writes, “it remains the individual investigator who has the tools at hand to speed science along.”

Library Journal Academic Newswire, May 10, 2007

Peter Hirtle, from Cornell University, examines five author addenda as solutions to the transferring of author rights to publishers.

Excerpt from Author Addenda: An Examination of Five Alternatives, D-Lib Magazine, November 2006, vol. 12, no. 11

The Problem:
When an author publishes a book or a paper, many publishers ask the author to transfer all copyrights in the work to the publisher. But that is not always to the author’s advantage.

When authors assign to publishers all of the rights that comprise the bundle of rights known as copyright, they lose control over their scholarly output. Assignment of copyright ownership may limit the ability of authors to incorporate elements into future articles and books. Authors may not be able to use their own work in their teaching, or to authorize others at the institution or elsewhere to use materials.

Unless addressed in the transfer agreement, the publisher may forbid an author to do the following:
• Post the work to the author’s own web site, an institutional repository, or a subject-based repository.
• Copy the work for distribution to students.
• Use the work as the basis for future articles or other works.
• Give permission for the work to be used in a course at the author’s institution.
• Grant permission to faculty and students at other universities to use the material.
For all of the above reasons, many organizations and institutions have encouraged authors to better manage their copyrights.

One Solution: the Author’s Addenda:
Until recently, the primary method that authors could use to retain some rights in their writings was to rewrite the contract with the publishers themselves. Thanks to the development of standardized author addenda, the task has become much simpler. An author’s addendum is a standardized legal instrument that modifies the publisher’s agreement and allows the author to keep key rights.

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) is calling on colleges and universities to take steps to address what they see as rampant copyright abuse by faculty. According to the AAP, faculty who post protected content online for use in their courses cost the publishing industry at least $20 million each year in lost revenues. Before the advent of online reserves, faculty would often place hard-copy materials in the library for students to view. That practice has been largely replaced by making digital copies of course materials available online. The publishing industry objects, saying faculty who do this go beyond the scope of fair use. Allan Adler, vice president for legal and governmental affairs with AAP, said, “We can’t compete with free.” The organization pointed to a recent agreement with Cornell University in which the institution works to educate faculty on appropriate uses of copyrighted material and on best practices to avoid infringing uses.

The AAP hopes that other institutions will implement programs similar to the one Cornell has adopted.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 20 November 2006 http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/292898_copyright20.html

Edupage, EDUCAUSE Listserve, Nov 27, 2006