Date: Wed, 24 Jul 1996 10:45:37 -0300 (ADT) Subject: websites, ftp, and copyright Date: Fri, 19 Jul 1996 09:24:49 -0400 From: Phil Scott Dear Colleagues: As many of you know, with the increasing use of web- and ftp-sites for depositing papers, there is a problem about copyright and legal issues about who owns the rights to your papers and if you can distribute electronic copies (particularly after they have been published). I am thinking mainly of Journals but certainly the same question exists for other types of published material. This came to note recently at McGill when a statistician was ordered by Academic Press to remove something from his website, for copyright violation (see the web-site of Keith Worsley, http://www.math.mcgill.ca/~keith (see his article 1995 by Worsley,Marrett, Neelin, Evans--when you click on it the letter from AP will appear) ). Independently of this particular case, the issue is obviously of increasing importance, given universal use of electronic sites at universities as well as shrinking library budgets. There are many issues, from questions of how to keep in business traditional, high-quality journals (indeed, if they will--or should-- continue to exist in these days of web-publishing and electronic journals), to practical questions of what kind of publications will count towards tenure, promotion, research grants, etc. Viewpoints of academics vary considerably, from those who wish to continue the stability of traditional journals to those who wish to have non-commercial electronic publishing. I suspect economics will ultimately rule, but rational discussion with publishers has begun. On a practical note,during recent e-mail discussions with some colleagues (M. Barr, P. Freyd, A. Meyer, M. Mislove, J. Mitchell, A. Nerode, A. Scedrov), it was pointed out repeatedly that authors should keep their electronic rights, either by explicitly writing such on the copyright form mailed to them by publishers, or use some kind of general form. Andre Scedrov and John Mitchell kindly supplied the Stanford form, which I enclose below. I should also point out that many professional academic organizations (American and Canadian Math. Soc, Association of Symbolic Logic, etc.) and several commercial publishers do allow authors to keep electronic copies of their articles on public e-mail sites. Your comments much appreciated. Cheers, Philip Scott (phil@csi.uottawa.ca) ========================================================== Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 11:28:22 -0400 From: scedrov@saul.cis.upenn.edu (Andre Scedrov) Posted-Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 11:28:22 -0400 Subject: Re: copyright, academics, and websites Status: R I have been using the following form, which comes from Stanford, without any problems with hardcopy journals. I have not tried it yet with electronic journals. Some hardcopy journals, like the Bulletin of Symbolic Logic, maintain freely available electronic files of their published papers in their websites. Best, Andre ******************************************************* ATTACHMENT FOR PUBLISHER AGREEMENTS Note: this form should be attached to the publisher copyright form when the material you are submitting for publication is in whole, or in substantial part, available through the _____________ University Electronic Library. I, , have granted ____________ University nonexclusive rights to perform, display, and distribute all/ a substantial part/ of an earlier version of (name of article)__________________________________________________ to be published in (name ofpublication)_______________________________________________ _____________ University has the right to make this information available through electronic distribution and through its printed technical reports series.