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Publishers are in a position to develop optimal copyright management policies and contracts in order to allow authors to self-archive, and thereby allow research findings to become available to all. These copyright policies can only be created if all parties cooperate, and the concerns of authors and their employing institutions are addressed, while ensuring a balance of rights in the process of scholarly communication. This section provides some information resources that are of particular benefit to publishers.
The Zwolle Principles
Publishers’ rights and those of the academic author need to be carefully balanced. It is in the interests of all stakeholders to have an effective and fair scholarly communication system and the rights and requirements of academics, publishers and HEIs should be reconciled and represented in publishing agreements and in self-archiving policies. To encourage this balance and mutual understanding, the Zwolle Principles were created in order to help achieve maximum access to scholarly research without compromising on quality or denying the actual costs involved in publishing. Following these principles will help ensure that all stakeholders can actively work together in order to formulate and implement effective copyright practices.
A new scholarly publishing model
Open Access and self-archiving possibilities represent a radical departure from the traditional scholarly publishing model and some publishers are naturally concerned about the effects on their subscriptions and revenue. Those from learned societies may particularly see OA as a threat as they may rely solely on their journals’ subscriptions for their existence. However, a recent study (Swan & Brown, 2005) found that the launch of arXiv, a subject-based repository for physics, did not appear to lead to a reduction in subscriptions to traditional physics journals. More research is needed, however, into the co-existence of traditional toll-based journals and Open Access archives.
Publishing agreements
As part of the 'Publishing Agreements' project of the Partnering on Copyright programme, the copyright toolkit assists publishers in determining the rights that are important to their business. A list of ‘elementary rights’ that publishers should hold or acquire has also been created and can be found here. These include rights to storage of an academic’s work in a database, to re-use it in translations and anthologies, and to change the article’s physical appearance. This project also provides an opportunity for publishers to discuss copyright statements which apply in the UK and the Netherlands, and to try to standardise such publishing agreements.
Open Access publishing
Four different copyright models, as used by Open Access journal publishers, have been identified in a report carried out as part of the Open Access Journals and Copyright project. By becoming familiar with these, you may compare and contrast them with your own publishing agreements, and ,as a result, may propose improvements based on these.
Copyright Knowledge Bank
It is in the interests of publishers to keep up-to-date with the copyright and self-archiving policies of other publishers. Publishers also need to ensure their own policies are widely disseminated, and then updated accordingly. The SHERPA/RoMEO database of publisher copyright policies and the Copyright Knowledge Bank are very effective vehicles for doing this. If publishers’ policies allow self-archiving, then this will help encourage authors to publish in their journals. You are encouraged to disseminate your own copyright policy through these avenues.
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