Re: Online and out of print - second question

Many thanks to the respondents to my original query about how things become "out of print" when they are online. To pursue this question a little further: most respondents have suggested putting clarifications into publishing contracts. Does anyone have an explicit suggestion for a clause in a contract that would serve to define an acceptable period for a work to be in print electronically before it beomes legally out of print?

To start the ball rolling, for an electronic journal, I would imagine this could be something like, "The article is deemed to be in print during the issue life of this issue of the journal, and out of print as soon as the next issue comes out, or in three months whichever is the shorter time-span".

For a journal article or book that has been printed in paper format, a two-stage clause might be attempted: 1) a clause that relates the electronic version to the print version in cases when both are issued at the same time ("this electronic version of the work becomes out-of- print when the print version goes out of print"), and 2) a clause that relates the electronic version to the print version in cases when they are issued at different times ("this [electonic][print] version of the work is considered to be in print until [date], after which it will be considered out of print, with all rights save any typographical right reverting to the author").

In the latter case, how long do people think it is fair for an electronic publisher to retain the rights to something he/she has placed on the Internet on behalf of the author. Just because something can be kept online and inexhaustibly accessible for ever (unlike the physical stock depletion or unmarketable stock burden that renders paper works out-of-print), there should surely be some consensus as to a fair term. Anybody care to venture a limit? Six months? Six years? Sixty years? My preference would be 6 months.

CHRIS ZIELINSKI
Secretary General, ALCS
74 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1EF, United Kingdom Tel: (0044)-(0)171 255 2034 - Fax: (0044)-(0)171 323 0486 <chris.zielinski[_at_]alcs.co.uk> Received on Tue Feb 25 1997 - 16:01:22 GMT