Re: transfer of c. in conference proceedings

Stephen Childe <s.childe[_at_]plymouth.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> 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.

The main reason is economic. With a full assignment of copyright, the organisers can exploit the proceedings in whichever way they want without referring back to the contributors. A suitably-worded licence could achieve substantially the same effect, and a more limited licence providing for the anticipated publication formats would probably suffice. An argument in favour of an assignment is that it will simplify enforcement proceedings; and I believe that in some jurisdictions (although not the UK) only the owner of the copyright can initiate proceedings.

This question, in relation to journal publishing rather than conference proceedings, is currently the subject of some debate in the UK between journal publishers on the one side and authors' groups on the other. There are substantial merits on both sides of the argument.

-- 
Edward Barrow
edward[_at_]plato32.demon.co.uk