Journal Copyright Policy Gossip

William Stein


Contents

Why This Page Exists
How to Submit New Entries
The Gossip

Why This Page Exists

I submitted something to Compositio Math recently, and they sent me a copyright form, and it definitely did not say "we give you the right to keep the paper on your web page". So I emailed them saying "you know, I would rather like to retain the right to put the paper on my web page. So which bits of the copyright form should I delete before I sign it?". This was in May. I heard nothing from them until today.

To my surprise, I got a brief email from them today, saying "if you want to put your paper on the internet then why do you want to publish your paper in a journal" ! I wrote back with the obvious reply "The internet is not refereed; it looks much better if I publish my papers in journals, but it's much more convenient for a 'mathematician on the street' if I publish my paper on my web page too; to be honest, if you insist on taking away my rights to publish the paper on my web page then I will strongly consider publishing elsewhere". They wrote back to me saying essentially "I think it is sad that you are not seeing things from the publishers point of view. Consider what you are doing and get back to us".

I was not expecting to get into this position at all. I had it in my mind that all the copyright forms I've signed recently had clauses saying "you can put the paper on your web page but that's it". Whilst I'm not one of these 'I demand to retain the copyright on my own papers' terrorists, I do think that ones home page is a fantastic place to put ones papers!


I responded to Kevin as follows:
I completely agree with you. I also think you are doing the right thing by asking the journals instead of simply putting the papers on your page and daring them to sue you. The only other useful thing I should suggest is that one of us should set up a web page that records the copyright policy of various journals that we number theorists publish in. This could save people a lot of wasted time; for example, you wouldn't have submitted to Compositio months ago if you had known their policy. Also, if this web page were popular, then the "blacklisted" journals might be more likely to change their policy. An informal check of Crelle and Pac. J. Math. suggests that journals typically don't make their copyright policies easily available.

How to Submit New Entries

If you would like to add an entry, please send an email to William Stein (
was@math.harvard.edu) with the following information:
   * Journal name
   * Journal URL
   * Link to or relevant excerpts from the copyright form
   * Gossip about practical experiences with this journal

The Gossip

This section records, in alphabetical order, the gossip I've received or dug up myself about the copyright policies of certain journals. You might find it of some use, but you should treat it as gossip. If you want to be absolutely certain about a journal's policy, contact the journal yourself. If you discover that something below is incorrect, please
send me an email.