Re: transfer of c. in conference proceedings

From: Dan L Burk <BURKDANL[_at_]shu.edu>
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 11:22:41 -0400

On 07/28/98, Angela Putney <aputney[_at_]aip.org> wrote:
>
> On 07/27/98, 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.
>

[snip]
>
> In Physics and Astronomy conference proceedings, the publishers (that
> I am aware of) require a transfer of copyright agreement. They claim
> they need this in order to be able to properly publish and distribute
> the proceedings (they need some form of rights to publish it in any
> case).

Well, yes, but the agreement need only tranfer a non-exclusive right to publish the paper. In fact, you might be able to infer such a right from the fact that the author presented the paper at the conference, without a written agreement. This doesn't necessitate transfer of all rights.

> If there are any infringements, they can fight for the author.

With statutory damages and attorney's fees, the author can probably fight for herself. The real value here may be in detecting, rather than enforcing, the copyright -- a publisher working in the subject matter area may be more likely to detect infringements than the author would be. I emphasize *may.*

> They can also deal with requests for re-printing (the publisher is
> usually easier to find years later than the author).

This is also a dubious assumption. I have watched several smaller scientific publishing houses go out of business, which makes the copyright holder *really* hard to find.

> They can also re-print the proceedings if they have copyright (I could
> imagine a one-time use consent to publish being offered which would
> disallow this).

This could also be dealt with by a more limited rights transfer, even a non-exclusive rights transfer.

> (This is what I am told at least).

I think you (like the rest of us) have been told some convenient justifications by publishers.

I suspect the real reason is that conference proceedings don't tend to sell very many copies, so that the publisher feels it needs the ability to exploit the work in ancillary or secondary markets in order to make a profit. Besides being the real reason, this might actually be a persuasive reason if the publisher would admit it.

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Dan L. Burk
Seton Hall University
burkdanl[_at_]shu.edu

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Received on Wed Jul 29 1998 - 15:16:18 GMT