January 14, 2008
Librarian: Ohio State Professors Need Copyright Refresher
Beware of faculty members who are clueless about whether they hold the copyrights to their research papers, Trisha Davis, a librarian at Ohio State University, told a group of librarians today at the midwinter conference of the American Library Association.
She made the remark while discussing the challenges Ohio State faced in building an institutional repository. The university has over 21,000 articles — including conference papers, teaching materials, photographs, and multimedia works — in the archive.
Faculty members will submit research papers to the repository often unaware that they have signed away the rights to their work to a journal publisher, Ms. Davis said. “They are stunned that they have not retained the copyrights,” she said. “They’re vehemently adamant” that they still have rights to the work.
Also, she added, faculty members sometimes add other scholars’ material to the repository, incorrectly assuming that this is allowed under fair use. — Andrea L. Foster
Posted on Monday January 14, 2008 | Permalink |Comments
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Perhaps it’s not a refresher in copyright they need so much as a disclaimer before submission.
— Carlo Jan 14, 05:29 PM #
The basic idea of having an informative session pertaining specifically to “copyrights” is an excellent one. Many authors are not aware of copyright stipulations. In general, most professional journals hold the copyright to the article once it is published. However, if an author elected to disagree and actually went to court to retain the copyright, the author has a better than 75% chance of winning. In the final analysis, most authors do not want to spend their financial resources to fight the matter.
William Allan Kritsonis, PhD
Editor-in-Chief
NATIONAL FORUM JOURNALS
(Founded 1983)
www.nationalforum.com
— William Allan Kritsonis, PhD Jan 14, 08:24 PM #
Some common sense might help out here. For example, relatively few journals “slip one by” the unsuspecting author, just as relatively few book publishers pull a fast one on their authors and editors. People are informed of their rights and of what rights they are giving up in exchange for royalties or other compensation, if any.
What’s really striking is how many authors think “fair use” entitles them to borrow the work of others without permission or, sometimes, even attribution. Or at least such is the posture assumed. If someone else were to “borrow” their work the same way, the different viewpoint would lead to a different attitude mighty fast.
Some people lift other people’s work with mind-blowing serenity. The logic appears to be “If I can lift it, it’s mine to use.” Putting the shoe on the other foot, even hypothetically, is about the only corrective.
Dr. Kritsonis is right, of course, about the likelihood of retaining rights and about the costs of doing so.
— Dan Kirklin Jan 15, 08:43 AM #
William, you say: “However, if an author elected to disagree and actually went to court to retain the copyright, the author has a better than 75% chance of winning.” What is the basis of the 75% number? I’m not familiar with any cases where authors have attempted to challenge their rights in court. I’d love to see some studies on this topic.
— Peter Murray Jan 15, 09:05 AM #
Academic writers depend on their institution and grants to make a living. Why do we continue to donate our products to commercial publishers for their profit? The current commercial system keeps us from using our own articles without permission from publishers. Open access journals make the process much more simple and fair. Check out http://www.arl.org/sparc/author/.
— librarian & editor Jan 15, 10:38 AM #
It should be noted that the institution also has an interest in this ownership question quite apart from the Library’s desire to build an institutional repository. For instance, it’s in the institution’s interest that the author be able to continue to use the work in her own teaching. Some institutions claim strong work for hire rights to faculty publications, just as they claim ownership for patentable inventions. Institutions are increasingly taking the stand that as part of the employment contract they retain a non-exclusive right to use the scholarly works at least for teaching and other non-commercial purposes. That seems to be a plausible compromise — the author and the institution get a nonexclusive right to continue to use the scholarship, but the commercial publisher gets to commercialize it.
— JQ Johnson Jan 15, 11:19 AM #
I have published work that the journal retains copyright for, but my agreement allows me to distribute reprints and even post a pdf on my website. Why couldn’t I contribute this to my university repository?
— anon Jan 15, 12:15 PM #
Much of the discussion on these issues comes down to some basic lessons: Be careful about what you sign; and keep a copy. Faculty authors must actively resist giving away all rights. Whatever its terms, the publishing agreement is important guidance for all future users of the publication throughout the life of the copyright. How long is that? Usually life of the author, plus 70 years. Yes, you need to keep that copy a long time! If that seems absurd, it probably is. But that is the situation handed to us, which takes me back to the importance of being careful and negotiating better agreements that might bring a glimmer of reason to the copyright predicament.
— Kenny Crews Jan 15, 06:47 PM #
Many journals do allow authors to submit copies of the work that they publish into institutional repositories (or even discipline specific ones) in their default agreements, but the question is under what terms. Can you only put a post-print? Maybe a pre-print? This can vary greatly based on the journal. Faculty need to know what agreements they have signed, and need to take advantage of the agreements that allow them to self-archive. Accordign to eprints.org “of the nearly 8460 journals surveyed over 90% are already “green” (i.e., they have already give their official green light to author self-archiving: 68% for postprints, 24% for preprints). Many of of the remaining 8% “gray” journals will agree if the author asks” (http://www.eprints.org/openaccess/self-faq/#self-archiving-legal). Also, some people argue that pre-refereed pre-prints can always be self-archived. The question is, why aren’t more colleges and universities requiring (or at least heavily encouraging) faculty to submit copies of their work to institutional repositories when the copyright agreement allows it?
— Edward M. Corrado Jan 16, 03:35 PM #
Dr. Kritsonis’s prediction that an author challenging a publisher in court over a signed contract would win 75% of the time seems unwarranted and unduly optimistic. This would be a question of contract law, not copyright law, and if the contract were worded clearly and the author signed it (after not having carefully read and understood it), it seems very unlikely that a court would side with the author. So, Kenny Crews is right: know what you are signing, and negotiate for the rights you want to retain. Most publishers nowadays will oblige by allowing posting of the article in some for, if not in the form of the final published article after both peer review and copyediting. (“Postprint” is ambiguous: it can mean either after peer review or after peer review and copyediting. Many publishers will allow the former, but not the latter.)
— Sandy Thatcher Jan 16, 05:12 PM #