[GOAL] Re: Charles Oppenheim on who owns the rights to scholarly articles

[Andrew A. Adams]

Sally Morris wrote:
> I find Andrew's experience surprising.  When Cox & Cox last looked into this
> (in 2008), 53% of publishers requested a copyright transfer, 20.8% asked for
> a licence to publish instead, and 6.6% did not require any written
> agreement.  A further 19.6%, though initially asking for transfer of
> copyright, would on request provide a licence document instead.  There had
> been a steady move away from transfer of copyright since 2003.

What's surprising about the fact that if 50% or so of publishers require a 
copyright transfer that a personal policy of not transferring copyright would 
be a problem? In my first case there was a special issue call that was 
perfect for a paper I was in the process of writing. I asked the editor about 
anexclusive license to publish instead of a copyright transfer. The 
(academic) special issue editor passed me to the (academic) main editor who 
passed me to the (publishing house) production staff who said an unequivocal 
"no". I passed on the special issue then had to go through three journals to 
find a suitable publication locus. Particularly when one's work is unusual 
and interdisciplinary, putting the extra burden of not transferring copyright 
on oneself limits one's choice of journals significantly and may well require 
publication in a far less prestigious place. The move may have been away fom 
copyright transfer, as it should be, but as I said for junior staff or those 
for whom publication locus is used by anyone as a quality proxy, it's not 
something one should do individually.


-- 
Professor Andrew A Adams                      aaa at meiji.ac.jp
Professor at Graduate School of Business Administration,  and
Deputy Director of the Centre for Business Information Ethics
Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan       http://www.a-cubed.info/