Re: L.Rev (C) Release

On Thu, 28 Oct 1999, John Allison <allisonj[_at_]mail.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
> The journal can do the same thing under a license, without owning the
> copyright.

John, I think we actually only asked for a license, instead of an assignment. But as Mark will attest, even if we asked for an assignment, we were perfectly happy to take a license, instead. (I'm no longer there, so don't have access to the actual agreement to check.)

And on Fri, 29 Oct 1999, Mark Lemley <mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu> wrote:
>
> This is very interesting, since I and virtually everyone else I know
> put up draft working papers on the Web in order to get comments on
> our work. In fact, there is an organization (SSRN) which has over
> 11,000 draft papers on the Web at last count.

Well, in practice we'd probably never know unless the author told us (as they frequently did). I'm sure we never took the time to look, and don't remember specifically asking, either. But certainly if someone told us another journal had published, that was the end of it.

Further, on Fri, 29 Oct 99, John Kasdan <kasdan[_at_]columbia.edu> wrote:
>
> Well, that's going to become increasingly problematic. Virtually all
> pieces that get published in law reviews first exist as working
> papers. In the old days those were circulated through private
> networks. But now with the Soc. Sci. Research Network (www.ssrn.com)
> working papers are broadly available on the web. And a quick glance
> shows that the law reviews at Columbia, U. of Chi., U. Mich. and
> Penn. are all planning to publish pieces that have appeared in working
> paper form on SSRN.

I agree. But I suspect that the "working paper" distinction (which is itself somewhat of a fiction at times) may be how they justify it to themselves; "we're still the first people to *really* publish this paper, after the wonderful editing that only we can do."

> Did you mean "b) foreign language journals are NOT in competition
> with English language journals

Yes, of course.

> Good point. I suppose SSRN and my web site will reduce downloading
> fees. Well, as a general matter I think that West and Lexis shouldn't
> get the kind of rents they do on legal materials, and to the extent I
> am such a material, I don't feel too bad that they, and the law
> reviews with whom they contract, will get reduced fees.

Nor do I. But of course, I'm not a student editor any longer, either. Today, I'm more likely to be concerned with the exorbitant cost of journals.
:-)

Richard A. Schafer
<schafer[_at_]mail.utexas.edu> Received on Fri Oct 29 1999 - 23:49:20 GMT