Re: Open access: a must for Wellcome Trust researchers[response to comments from ALPSP]

["Peter Banks" <pbanks@diabetes.org>]

Wellcome isn't the only funder with a troublesome disregard for existing
copyright agreements. NIH seems also be stumbling into copyright
infringement.

Out of 522 author manuscripts now posted in PMC, 151 were actually
published in 2004. While many publishers have modified copyright
agreements to permit the deposit of author manuscripts accepted after May
2, the date of implementation of the NIH plan, some of the papers
publisher prior to May 2 were accepted under copyright agreements that do
not allow posting of author manuscripts in repositories.

Nothing in the NIH plan permits the deposit of pre-May 2 papers unless
permitted by copyright agreements, yet NIH does not seem to be exhibiting
the care a publisher normally would to ensure that what it posts does not
infringe on existing copyright agreements. Perhaps somewhere in its
documents it is requring grantees to warrant that they have the right to
submit materials to which they do not hold copyright--but I doubt it. Any
publisher who did what NIH is doing would be receiving some hearty crease
and desist letters by now.

Peter Banks
Acting Vice President for Publications/Publisher
American Diabetes Association
Email: pbanks@diabetes.org

>>> espositoj@gmail.com 10/12/05 9:13 PM >>>

Well, it appears I owe Sally Morris an apology.  In an earlier post I
indicated that she must have been mistaken in asserting that the Wellcome
Trust was forcing authors to breach their contracts.  From Mr. Kiley's
post it's clear that she was not mistaken.  I hope no tort lawyers are on
this list.

As for being "duty bound," I would have thought that duty called for
floating the policy by the recipients of the grants to see if they had any
questions prior to promulgation.  Or duty could have been construed as
grandfathering authors who had already signed contracts.  Or duty could be
simply to acknowledge that a mistake had been made and to take steps to
correct it.

Joe Esposito