Friday, December 18, 2009

InfoBrief: Holding Your Copyright in Articles

The librarians talked about open access and the importance of holding on to copyright for your articles, at the faculty workshop earlier this month.  Placing your articles in the Scholarship@Cornell Law repository relies on your holding the copyright.  An article has just appeared in SSRN on "Examining Law Journal Publication Agreements for Copyright Transfers and Self-Archiving Rights," at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1508044.

The study examines 78 law journal publication agreements and finds that a minority of journals ask authors to transfer copyright. Most journals also permit author to self-archive articles with some conditions. The study recommends journals make their agreements publicly available and use licenses instead of copyright transfers.  [from the abstract]

The article is to be published May 2010 in Law Library Journal.  Contact your liaison or me if you would like a copy of the paper.

Happy Holidays,

Pat Court
Associate Law Librarian
pgc1@cornell.edu