[GOAL] Status of OUP/ESA copyrights on PDF files of journal articles that were never copyrighted

[Walker,Thomas J]

I am trying to understand the business plan that Oxford University Press (OUP) has for the subscription journals of the Entomological Society of America (ESA).  In doing so,  I found notices of copyright on abstracts of ESA articles from 1908 forward.  For example, see this abstract of an article published in 1908 in ESA’s Annals: http://aesa.oxfordjournals.org/content/1/3/179​.


You will see under the title of the article a DOI followed by “First published online: 1 September 1908”, a claim that is difficult to square with the history of the internet.

·         Beneath the abstract is this claim to copyright: “© 1908 Entomological Society of America.”

Question:

Do those who make PDFs of journal articles that were never copyrighted have a valid claim to a copyright of their PDF of the article?

Tom
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Thomas J. Walker
Department of Entomology & Nematology
PO Box 110620 (or Natural Area Drive)
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611-0620
E-mail: tjw at ufl.edu     FAX: (352)392-0190
Web: http://entomology.ifas.ufl.edu/walker/
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