injuryupdate
24-02-2006, 08:21 PM
OK Will Hopkins owns the copyright to this editorial, published at sportsci.org and this paste may break it! But a good article....
Editorial: Copyright Control
Will G Hopkins, Sport and Recreation, AUT University, Auckland 1020, New Zealand. Email. Sportscience 9, 21-22, 2005 (sportsci.org/jour/05/inbrief.htm#copyright). Reviewed by Steve Olivier, Social and Health Sciences, University of Abertay Dundee, Dundee, UK. Published Dec 7, 2005. ©2005
Before the Net, authors of scientific articles used to sign over the copyright to a publisher without much concern. Now we may be in breach of copyright when we put excerpted material in our handouts or re-publish part or all of the articles at our websites or blogs. Sometimes the copyright transfer allows us to do some of these things, provided we credit the publisher. But with some copyright transfers, even sending an electronic copy to a colleague is forbidden.
I object to limitations on my freedom to use my creative work for relevant and useful ends in whatever manner I choose. One of the reasons I set up this site was to retain that freedom. Unfortunately, for the sake of the academic bean counters and my credibility, I still have to get some papers into recognized journals. So I sign over the copyright from time to time.
The advent of a new journal gave me an opportunity to test the waters with its publisher, Human Kinetics. The editor of International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, had invited me and Alan Batterham to write a commentary for the first issue, due out early in 2006. I had already suggested to the editor some months earlier that the publisher might like to consider waiving the copyright transfer for invited commentaries, but by the time the article was written and submitted, there had been no response from the publisher. When the copyright transfer arrived and I refused to sign it, negotiations began.
Meanwhile, I sent a request to the Sportscience mailing list for any information about journals that allow authors to keep the copyright. The only really useful reply was from Jim Feeley, a freelance editor/journalist, who sent me some information about an endeavor called Creative Commons, where you can customize and download your own license to allow others to use your creative work at whatever level you choose. An offshoot called the Science Commons is dedicated to the cause of open access for scientific literature: "digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions".
Jim included a link to the Public Library of Science, which now hosts six biomedical journals that allow full free public access and that allow authors to keep copyright. It would be great to have a PLoS journal in exercise and sport science, but I can't see it taking off while the page charges for authors of PLoS journals are so high: currently US$1500 per article. (It took me a lot of searching at the site to find this information.) I am also concerned that a charge of this magnitude makes affluence of the researchers a factor contributing to the publishability of a manuscript. In fairness, the PLoS site does state that the publisher will waive the charge for authors who plead poverty, and that it won't check on the truth of the plea.
Jim expressed an interest in a "commons sports science journal". I pointed out that Sportscience was an attempt at such a journal, but that researchers and practitioners in our discipline are apparently happy to read it but not to contribute to it.
I also got a reply from Hakan Gur, editor of the electronic-only Journal of Sports Science and Medicine. He told me that he requires authors to transfer copyright, because he is concerned about "legal problems". I asked him to elaborate, but he did not reply.
There are two other purely e-journals in our discipline that I know of: Journal of Exercise Physiology Online and the new Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports. JEPonline requires authors to "transfer all copyright ownership to the JEPonline". JQAS states that it allows authors to keep the copyright, but the statement is nonsense: one clause effectively stops the author from doing anything with the article for five years (including, presumably, sending someone a copy of the article), and another clause allows Berkeley Electronic Press to do anything with the material forever.
So, how did it work out with Human Kinetics? My starting position was that I keep the copyright, and that I grant HK the right to use the work to turn a profit in their usual ways. HK's representative countered that the agreement would require something like the following clause: "The author grants the publisher exclusive and unrestricted right to make use of the content in any way it wishes in perpetuity." I was prepared to build an agreement around such a clause, but he wasn't. My fall-back position was to add the following clause to their copyright transfer: "The publisher grants the authors exclusive and unrestricted right to make use of the content in any way they wish in perpetuity." Alas, HK's representative would not agree, although he appreciated the irony. Their copy editor was similarly uncooperative about our objections to pointless and annoying stylistic changes she had made to the article.
In the end I signed the copyright transfer, partly because it actually gives authors considerable freedom–possibly more than any other traditional academic publisher bestows on its authors. Indeed, I am permitted to include part or all of the text in other publications, and only the figures, if unmodified, require citation of the original publication. An augmented version of the paper in its original style and with modified figures therefore appears in this issue. Will Human Kinetics tighten up its transfer after this incident? I hope not.
Bottom line… if you want control of your own work, start asking for it. You won't get it yet, but things won't change until enough of us make a fuss. Tell the editor of your manuscript that you object. Scrawl an objection over the top of every copyright transfer. Don't feel humiliated by publishers' patronizing attitudes and don't be misled by their fatuous arguments. Raise the issue at editorial-board and institutional meetings. And make the terms of the copyright transfer a consideration when you choose a journal for your work.
Editorial: Copyright Control
Will G Hopkins, Sport and Recreation, AUT University, Auckland 1020, New Zealand. Email. Sportscience 9, 21-22, 2005 (sportsci.org/jour/05/inbrief.htm#copyright). Reviewed by Steve Olivier, Social and Health Sciences, University of Abertay Dundee, Dundee, UK. Published Dec 7, 2005. ©2005
Before the Net, authors of scientific articles used to sign over the copyright to a publisher without much concern. Now we may be in breach of copyright when we put excerpted material in our handouts or re-publish part or all of the articles at our websites or blogs. Sometimes the copyright transfer allows us to do some of these things, provided we credit the publisher. But with some copyright transfers, even sending an electronic copy to a colleague is forbidden.
I object to limitations on my freedom to use my creative work for relevant and useful ends in whatever manner I choose. One of the reasons I set up this site was to retain that freedom. Unfortunately, for the sake of the academic bean counters and my credibility, I still have to get some papers into recognized journals. So I sign over the copyright from time to time.
The advent of a new journal gave me an opportunity to test the waters with its publisher, Human Kinetics. The editor of International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, had invited me and Alan Batterham to write a commentary for the first issue, due out early in 2006. I had already suggested to the editor some months earlier that the publisher might like to consider waiving the copyright transfer for invited commentaries, but by the time the article was written and submitted, there had been no response from the publisher. When the copyright transfer arrived and I refused to sign it, negotiations began.
Meanwhile, I sent a request to the Sportscience mailing list for any information about journals that allow authors to keep the copyright. The only really useful reply was from Jim Feeley, a freelance editor/journalist, who sent me some information about an endeavor called Creative Commons, where you can customize and download your own license to allow others to use your creative work at whatever level you choose. An offshoot called the Science Commons is dedicated to the cause of open access for scientific literature: "digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions".
Jim included a link to the Public Library of Science, which now hosts six biomedical journals that allow full free public access and that allow authors to keep copyright. It would be great to have a PLoS journal in exercise and sport science, but I can't see it taking off while the page charges for authors of PLoS journals are so high: currently US$1500 per article. (It took me a lot of searching at the site to find this information.) I am also concerned that a charge of this magnitude makes affluence of the researchers a factor contributing to the publishability of a manuscript. In fairness, the PLoS site does state that the publisher will waive the charge for authors who plead poverty, and that it won't check on the truth of the plea.
Jim expressed an interest in a "commons sports science journal". I pointed out that Sportscience was an attempt at such a journal, but that researchers and practitioners in our discipline are apparently happy to read it but not to contribute to it.
I also got a reply from Hakan Gur, editor of the electronic-only Journal of Sports Science and Medicine. He told me that he requires authors to transfer copyright, because he is concerned about "legal problems". I asked him to elaborate, but he did not reply.
There are two other purely e-journals in our discipline that I know of: Journal of Exercise Physiology Online and the new Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports. JEPonline requires authors to "transfer all copyright ownership to the JEPonline". JQAS states that it allows authors to keep the copyright, but the statement is nonsense: one clause effectively stops the author from doing anything with the article for five years (including, presumably, sending someone a copy of the article), and another clause allows Berkeley Electronic Press to do anything with the material forever.
So, how did it work out with Human Kinetics? My starting position was that I keep the copyright, and that I grant HK the right to use the work to turn a profit in their usual ways. HK's representative countered that the agreement would require something like the following clause: "The author grants the publisher exclusive and unrestricted right to make use of the content in any way it wishes in perpetuity." I was prepared to build an agreement around such a clause, but he wasn't. My fall-back position was to add the following clause to their copyright transfer: "The publisher grants the authors exclusive and unrestricted right to make use of the content in any way they wish in perpetuity." Alas, HK's representative would not agree, although he appreciated the irony. Their copy editor was similarly uncooperative about our objections to pointless and annoying stylistic changes she had made to the article.
In the end I signed the copyright transfer, partly because it actually gives authors considerable freedom–possibly more than any other traditional academic publisher bestows on its authors. Indeed, I am permitted to include part or all of the text in other publications, and only the figures, if unmodified, require citation of the original publication. An augmented version of the paper in its original style and with modified figures therefore appears in this issue. Will Human Kinetics tighten up its transfer after this incident? I hope not.
Bottom line… if you want control of your own work, start asking for it. You won't get it yet, but things won't change until enough of us make a fuss. Tell the editor of your manuscript that you object. Scrawl an objection over the top of every copyright transfer. Don't feel humiliated by publishers' patronizing attitudes and don't be misled by their fatuous arguments. Raise the issue at editorial-board and institutional meetings. And make the terms of the copyright transfer a consideration when you choose a journal for your work.