Open-access policies: A legal quagmire | Science

peter.suber's bookmarks 2016-08-19

Summary:

"Many university open-access policies grant a shared copyright to the school for all faculty articles before publication. According to these policies, which are often based on Harvard's model language (1, 2), faculty members deposit articles into an institutional open-access repository. Faculty can request a waiver from the policy for a particular article. Once a publisher accepts an article for publication, the author signs a copyright agreement that transfers certain rights to the publisher and certifies that the author has unencumbered possession of those rights. However, if the author has not obtained a waiver to the school's open-access repository, it is unclear whether his or her rights to the article are encumbered by the previous grant to the school....So far, there have been no lawsuits accusing journal authors of violations. However, by signing consents [publishing contracts] without a thorough understanding of the legal requirements, authors are leaving themselves vulnerable to unknown repercussions. We must look for better approaches to open-access policies."

Link:

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/353/6301/758.2

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » peter.suber's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.policies oa.green oa.waivers oa.copyright oa.negative oa.repositories

Date tagged:

08/19/2016, 14:51

Date published:

08/19/2016, 10:51