STM Press Release - Negotiating Authors' Rights

["Janice Kuta, STM" <kuta@stm-assoc.org>]

** PRESS RELEASE FROM STM **

20 April 2011

STM Publishers clarify position on negotiating authors' rights

STM today issues a clarifying statement on negotiating rights for 
institutional repository postings and author rights. Publishers 
appreciate that some institutions wish to showcase their 
achievements in institutional repositories. The statement signals 
that publishers are ready to engage in discussion about how best 
this goal can be achieved. However, STM and its member publishers 
caution against conflating content license negotiations with 
author rights issues. 'STM Statement on Negotiating Rights for 
Institutional Repository Postings and Author Rights' was released 
today by the International Association of Scientific, Technical & 
Medical Publishers and is available on the STM website at:

http://www.stm-assoc.org/2011_04_19_STM_statement_on_licensing_and_authors_rights.pdf

Publishers are committed to the wide dissemination and 
unrestricted access to content they publish, on the understanding 
that services that publishers provide must be paid for in some 
way. "The publishing community has a strong track record of 
responsiveness to authors with respect to scholarly use and 
re-use," the statement says. "[J]ournal publishing agreements 
generally address, and have addressed for many years, issues 
about scholarly use and re-use by authors of their own work, 
including questions about compliance with research funder 
policies such as the NIH."

The statement follows proposals that content license negotiations 
between institutions and publishers be extended to encompass such 
rights. These proposals1 suggest that author reuse rights, and 
the right to post in institutional repositories, could become 
part of such content license negotiations. STM has a different 
view: "We hold the view that conflating author rights issues and 
institutional content licenses serves only to add greater 
complexity and possible legal uncertainty to such licenses 
without adding meaningful benefits for authors."

Instead, the statement encourages ongoing dialog, objective 
research and assessment on the impact of institutional 
repositories. It points to the PEER project as key to help 
"develop and refine evidence-based policies and practices in this 
vital and evolving digital ecosystem."