RE: Haworth copyright policy clarification

["Bebbington Laurence" <Laurence.Bebbington@nottingham.ac.uk>]

In the spirit of welcoming conversation here's a few more views 
on the form (the comments not necessarily confined only to 
Haworth assignments).

1. It might be nice for publishers to print these forms using a 
reasonable font size. When authors are being asked to sign away 
the lion's share of their copyright I'm sure that they would 
appreciate being able to read an important legal document without 
the aid of a magnifying glass!

2. I'm not entirely sure why this form, and others, seem to make 
it something of a virtue that it is not restrictive in relation 
to other rights and, for example, refers, to the fact that 
employees/institutions retain other proprietary intellectual 
property rights. Of course they do! The fact that they do so is a 
simple matter of law and not something that publishers are in a 
position to interfere with or take anyway in a form such as this. 
By taking out some of these unnecessary statements it might give 
more room to make it clear to authors exactly what they are 
signing away.

3. In terms of oral presentation rights. I don't know the 
position in the US but in the UK the Copyright Designs and 
Patents Act 1988, section 59 allows any person (not just a 
copyright owner) to read a "reasonable" extract from a published, 
copyright literary work. There may always be debate on what is 
"reasonable" but it is highly unlikely that anyone would fall 
foul of this provision by reading out a substantial part of such 
a work, at a gathering such as a conference.  In any case, 
various other statutory defences to infringement of copyright in 
the UK would also allow anyone to do this. It frequently 
interests me how publishers "license" things which the general 
law often allows in any case - and to a far wider audience than 
the original author!

4. To be honest I still have some difficulty in calling this, and 
similar documents from other publishers, a "LIMITED COPYRIGHT 
TRANSFER." Admittedly it is pretty limited (although reasonably 
representative) in terms of the residual limited rights reserved 
to the author. But I don't think that's what is meant!

5. I also still find it wholly unnecessary to take copyright, in 
an unsolicited work, which the publishers representatives or 
referees have not even read and may decide not to publish! 
Frankly, I think that that is inappropriate. You do not need 
ownership of copyright to put an article out to refereeing 
procedures, or simply to consider it for publication and I think 
it is an oppressive and unnecessary approach. Copyright should 
only pass on acceptance of the manuscript and it should not be 
made a pre-condition for its consideration. I don't know about 
the US but I wonder how a UK court would construe such an 
"agreement" - notwithstanding the Entire Agreement clause!

Regards

Laurence W. Bebbington
Law Librarian/IS Copyright Officer
Information Services
Hallward Library
University Park
The University of Nottingham
Nottingham

-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Sean Beppler
Sent: 27 March 2007 23:12
To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
Subject: Haworth copyright policy clarification

With apologies for cross-posting, we would like to respond to 
recent comment on several listservs about Haworth, copyright 
transfer, and manuscript submission to journals.

It was suggested that Haworth requires copyright transfer before 
beginning the review process to allow us to retain copyright for 
all submissions, published or unpublished. That's a lot of 
material, and far more copyright than would be productive.

In fact, language in the "2. Limited Copyright transfer" section 
of the Publication Agreement shows that copyright transfer is 
accomplished "if accepted and published by the journal..." 
Because this important qualification appears to be overlooked in 
a quick reading of the agreement, we're adding the following 
plain-English statement:

"Copyright transfer to The Haworth Press, Inc. shall 
automatically revert to the author in the event the paper is not 
published."  The addition will be posted to all online versions 
of both the Instructions for Authors and Publication Agreement by 
the middle of next week.

Some are presuming, too, that our publication agreement is 
uncommonly restrictive, but please note that our publication 
agreement provides for limited copyright transfer that includes 
significant author freedoms. Authors retain the following:

1. Proprietary rights, other than copyright, such as patent 
rights

2. Oral presentation right

3. Preprint distribution rights, including posting as electronic 
files on the contributor's own website for personal or 
professional use, on the contributor's university or corporate 
intranet or network, but not for either commercial or systematic 
third party sales or dissemination, e.g., interlibrary loan or 
document delivery, and the author may update the preprint with 
the final version of the article

4. Photocopying, online transmittal, or downloading rights to any 
colleagues for the advancement of scientific research (with the 
exception of systematic distribution as described above)

5. Publication rights in any book written or edited by the 
author, in any edited work for which the contributor is the sole 
editor or senior editor, or teaching coursepack prepared or 
written by the author.

For any of the above, no further permission is required from us. 
We ask only that authors include the copyright line, information 
about Haworth document delivery, and if reprinted electronically, 
a hotlink to Haworth. And if the work is reprinted 
electronically, there must be no charge for viewing the article.

This is quite different from the older full-transfer of copyright 
more common to older scholarly publishing.

We've been grateful for the opportunity to discuss these matters 
offline with a number of individuals who have posted about these 
matters.

Catalysts for learning are always welcome, particularly when it 
enables increased understanding between libraries and publishers. 
We welcome the conversation.

Kathryn Rutz
Vice President, Editorial
The Haworth Press, Inc.
Binghamton, New York 13904