Lunch Talking at SPARC 2012

“In the lunch break at SPARC 2012 today our table was discussing the negotiation of author rights for repository deposits. In lamenting how authors tend to be backed into a corner by the publisher's last-minute demands to sign the copyright transfer form (or else forfeit their publication opportunity), a delicious and subversive idea arose. I present it for you here, without any claim of endorsement by SPARC or my lunchtime companions. ‘PLOS NULL: the high profile, high impact journal that publishes articles that have been peer reviewed, accepted and corrected for publication by third party journals whose lawyers have then refused to agree the author's pro-repository copyright transfer amendment.’”