Re: Evolving Publisher Copyright Policies On Self-Archiving

From: Sally Morris <chief-exec_at_alpsp.org>
Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 15:49:28 +0000

On Tue, 9 Nov 2004 Charles Oppenheim wrote:

> I am indeed not a lawyer/attorney, but am regularly used by publishers as a
> legal consultant on licensing and copyright matters. To get formal learned
> counsel opinion would cost thousands of dollars.
>
> My view is that the so-called Harnad-Oppenheim solution is legally sound
> because
>
> (i) the document being self-archived is original to the author and is
> therefore his/her copyright
>
> (ii) the document submitted to the journal is a copy of (i) and it is
> therefore in the author's gift to send it to the journal
>
> (iii) the author then makes appropriate corrections based on referee
> comments and resubmits the revised article to the journal
>
> (iv) the author can then state honestly that the item resubmitted has not
> been published before because (iii) differs from (ii), and is also free to
> assign copyright to the revised text to the publisher if he/she so wishes
>
> However, if the journal accepts the paper as submitted under (ii) without
> any changes, then the solution collapses because it is no longer true that
> the article as submitted has not been published before.

Apologies for coming late to this discussion

First of all, I am surprised that Charles Oppenheim is still happy to
support the so-called Harnad-Oppenheim solution. I well remember Charles
publicly disowning it in a meeting of PALS (the UK publisher/university
collaboration) and agreeing that it was contrary to the spirit, even
if not the letter, of agreements with publishers. Charles, have you
changed your mind?

Secondly, my own view is that the 'H-O solution' is not only contrary to
the spirit of agreements with publishers, but also profoundly unhelpful
to readers. I think that it is far more important that we all work
together to agree a system of nomenclature for journal versions, metadata
to express this, and a protocol for forward and backward linking between
versions. I can think of at least the following versions:

    Pre-submission version (may be more than one)

    Submission version (may be more than one if returned for amendment
and resubmission)

    Accepted version, after peer review

    Edited version, prior to publication

    Formatted definitive publication version (e.g. PDF) but without
    functionality

    Fully edited, formatted and functional definitive version (i.e. on
    publisher's site)

    Post-publication version, with addenda/errata (may be more than one)

In a world where multiple versions may proliferate, I think we all -
authors, universities and publishers alike - owe it to readers to tell
them what they are looking at, and where other versions (in particular,
the definitive version with or without functionality, which is the only
version which should properly be cited) may be found.

Sally

Sally Morris, Chief Executive
Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers
South House, The Street, Clapham, Worthing, West Sussex BN13 3UU, UK

Phone: +44 (0)1903 871686 Fax: +44 (0)1903 871457
E-mail: chief-exec_at_alpsp.org <mailto:chief-exec_at_alpsp.org>
ALPSP Website http://www.alpsp.org <http://www.alpsp.org>

6 December Seminar, London
Automated Journal Editorial and Production Workflow
http://www.alpsp.org/events/s061204.htm
Received on Sat Dec 04 2004 - 15:49:28 GMT

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