Nature Publishing Group introduces post-cancellation rights to licensed web content

[NPG Library Communications <npglibcomms@natureny.com>]

**Apologies for any cross posting.**

Nature Publishing Group
28 September 2005

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is amending its site license policy to
provide customers with post-cancellation rights to content associated with
their licensed publications, subject to payment of an annual access fee.
At the same time, the period of content associated with site licenses will
be redefined.

Currently the content accessible via a site license includes all content
published during the site license period, plus specified archive content;
usually back to 1997, or the first issue of the journal on the nature.com
platform. This will be maintained for licenses starting in 2006.

For full details of how much content is licensed with each publication,
please go to: http://npg.nature.com/pdf/07_lic/summaries_content.pdf

The new licenses will provide post-cancellation rights to the licensed
content. Therefore, all renewing customers will be granted
post-cancellation rights to the content they can currently access via
their site license.

Site licenses starting in 2007 will provide access to all content
published during the license period, plus a specified back archive.  The
archive will generally include at least the four years of content
preceding the license start date. Customers taking a new license from 2007
will be granted post-cancellation rights to all content published during
the license period.

Customers now have the opportunity to decide how they wish to manage their
archive collections, and whether they wish to license content in 2006 to
guarantee post-cancellation rights to the available archives. New
customers from 2007 will also have the opportunity to purchase additional
archival content that will automatically include post-cancellation rights.

This policy will apply as far as possible to all journals published by
NPG. Post-cancellation rights will not apply to those journals that offer
open archives after 12 months, and some journals owned by scholarly
societies may adopt different policies.

The access fee supports the costs of hosting content, and related customer
service. Access fees for 2007 have not yet been confirmed, but the fees
will be competitive with other providers of archiving solutions. Access
fees will not apply for clients with a current license to the relevant
title.

Post-cancellation rights and access in perpetuity have been much debated
by librarians and publishers. With these changes we hope to reassure our
customers that they will have ongoing rights to content for which they
have paid license fees.  Technical issues still prevent any guarantee of
perpetual access ad infinitum, but with this new policy, we are providing
a sustainable solution that will accommodate the needs of libraries for
many years to come.

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd,
dedicated to serving the academic, professional scientific and medical
communities. NPG's flagship title, Nature, is the world's most
highly-cited weekly multidisciplinary journal and was first published in
1869. Other publications and services include Nature research journals,
Nature Reviews, Nature Clinical Practice, a range of prestigious academic
journals, including society-owned publications, news content from
news@nature.com and scientific career information from Naturejobs.

NPG is a global company, with headquarters in London and offices in New
York, San Francisco, Washington DC, Boston, Tokyo, Paris, Munich and
Basingstoke. For more information, please go to www.nature.com.
 
Contact details:
Suzanne Kidd
Communications Marketing Manager, Site License Business Unit
Nature Publishing Group
The Macmillan Building
4 Crinan Street
London, N1 9XW, UK
T: +44 (0)20 7843 4609
E: s.kidd@nature.com 

Links:
Librarian Gateway:  http://npg.nature.com/libraries
http://npg.nature.com/pdf/07_lic/summaries_content.pdf

# # #

This press release is also available at
http://npg.nature.com/pdf/cancellation.doc.

For all NPG press releases, go to http://www.nature.com/press_releases.html