transfer of c. in conference proceedings

It is becoming increasingly common for the organisers of academic conferences to insist on the authors of submitted papers signing a form to transfer their copyright to the organiser or the organising institution or publisher.

Can anyone suggest what the organiser would lose by not bothering with such a stipulation? It does not seem to protect against submission of the same material to several conferences, if some of the words are changed. The advantage of being able to re-publish in a further publication without further permission seems insignificant.

I am organising a conference, and I warned authors that they will be asked to sign a copyright transfer form (since I am generally following normal practice for all the arrangements). So far one author has objected, which has made me wonder whether it is worthwhile to make this stipulation. I was prepared to provide a clause which would make it clear that the author could still publish extracts from a paper. The objection seems to be along the lines that copyright transfer is pointless anyway.

I would be grateful for list members' views on this matter. Everyone asks for transfer of copyright - nobody seems to know exactly why they do it!

Final details - it is an international conference, to be held in the UK, proceedings to be edited by me and published by the University.

Many thanks
Steve Childe

Dr Steve Childe, University of Plymouth, UK s.childe[_at_]plymouth.ac.uk
http://www.tech.plym.ac.uk/soc/staff/schilde/home.html

SMESME99: Second International Conference on

         Stimulating Manufacturing Excellence
           in Small and Medium Enterprises
             Plymouth, 29-31 March 1999