[GOAL] Permissions attaching to pre-publication material

[Peter Murray-Rust]

As part of a project to automate the collection of Libre scholarly
publications and Libre material (
http://wiki.okfn.org/Working_Groups/access/website ) I would be grateful if
list members could offer clarification on whether a particular type of
publication is Libre (BOAI-compliant). The manuscript in Pubmed referenced
by http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18442920 states:

Footnotes
This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for
publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early
version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting,
typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in
its final citable form. Please note that during the production process
errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal
disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

It is also labelled NIHPA Author
Manuscripts<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=nih%20author%20manuscript[filter]&sort=SortDate&db=pmc&cmd=search&EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pmc.Pmc_LimitsTab.LimitsOff=true>

(A) Can I assume that this manuscript is pre-publication and therefore the
copyright resides with the authors and that the publisher can claim no
rights over anything in this manuscript, including images. (I'd like
definitive statements, not logical deductions, please)

(B) since it is a work of the US Government can I also assume it is in the
public domain and therefore free of copyright?

This is useful to our group in many ways even if it is not the final
publisher manuscript - for examples the images would be fully re-usable.

I am aware that even though it does not belong to any publisher , I am not
allowed to bulk download these manuscripts as the publishers place that
restriction on Pubmed. We have alternative approaches.

P.


-- 
Peter Murray-Rust
Reader in Molecular Informatics
Unilever Centre, Dep. Of Chemistry
University of Cambridge
CB2 1EW, UK
+44-1223-763069
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