The ACM and me

"Let me make one thing clear from the beginning: it was the ACM’s choice to remove my publication from their workshop proceedings. I did nothing to stop them. In fact, by waiving my copyright, I made it extraordinarily easy for them to include my work in their proceedings if they wanted. This is my story....[A]s per my copyright policy, I uploaded my final version of my paper to the arXiv under a public domain dedication....Before such submission I check with the conference/journal editors to see if this is acceptable. Most journals and conferences will not accept previously published submissions. However this policy usually refers to previously peer-reviewed publications, and since the arXiv is not peer reviewed, no editor has yet had a problem with this.... I always amend the copyright transfer agreement to make a note that I have already published my work under a public domain dedication and creative commons license and I am only transferring copyright to the extend possible (which I believe amounts to nothing). After mailing or faxing the amended copyright transfer agreement to the publisher, no publisher has yet refused to publish my work. They publish it after copy editing it, and stamp their own copyright on it. I find their copyright claim dubious; but I have no incentive to pursue the issue. With the ACM things are a little different...."