[GOAL] Re: Europe PubMed as a home for all RCUK research outputs?

[Couture Marc]

Sally Morris wrote :

>
> In their 2008 study, [Cox & Cox] found just over 50% of publishers asking 
> for copyright transfer in the first instance [...];  of these, a further 
> 20% would provide a 'licence to publish' as an alternative if requested by 
> the author.  At the same time, the number offering a licence in the first 
> instance had grown to around 20% by 2008.  So that's nearly 90%, by my 
> reckoning, who either don't ask for (c) in the first place, or will 
> provide a licence instead on request.
>

As has been pointed out, Cox & Cox article is not OA, so I can't check the source, but I haven't been able to reconcile these figures with Sally's account of that study: http://www.publishingresearch.net/documents/JournalAuthorsRights.pdf:

>
> 26% of publishers no longer require authors to transfer
> copyright, and a further 21% will offer a 'licence to publish'
> instead of a copyright transfer
>

This seems to mean that about 50% (not 90%) of publishers don't require copyright transfer.

Can Sally explain this (apparent) discrepancy? 

But anyway, the fact is those who don't require copyright transfer most generally ask for a license, often exclusive, whose terms may be as (or no more) generous as those of copyright transfer agreements. So the issue is not mainly if authors keep their copyright or not (although this bears a strong symbolic dimension), but what reuse rights they keep according to the agreement they are asked to sign.

Marc Couture