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compensation for publication of the work. Under the licence, the article
will be published on a publicly accessible institutional and/or subject
repository immediately after its publication in the journal.
In addition to the Licence to Publish, several other instruments have
been developed to protect an author's intellectual property and to
facilitate the addition of scientific articles to repositories. The best
known is the SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources
Coalition) addendum (SPARC, 2006). Several (mainly American)
universities have also developed an addendum, which they oblige their
authors to use (Open Access Directory, 2009). From a strictly legal
viewpoint, an addendum is binding only if both parties have signed it.
If an author sends the addendum to the publisher and the publisher
returns it unsigned, a legal vacuum can occur; which rules apply in this
situation is unclear, unless advance provisions were made for such a
situation in the text. If such provisions are lacking, authors may assume
that they can put their version of the article in the repository of their
choice, while the publisher's policy may prohibit this.
The existence of various licences and addenda leads to an obscure
portfolio of rights for publishers and institutions. It is difficult to keep
track of which rights belong to which party, and keeping detailed
records of this is an organizational and administrative burden for both
parties. In particular, publishers will not accept licences and addenda
developed by institutions or funders, and will adhere to their own
standards. Thus, for practical, financial and organizational reasons,
accessibility of digital content to the research community will benefit
from the joint development by both parties of standards which dovetail
with existing practice. Such co-operation needs to be encouraged, and a
conservative stance on the publishers' part is not an option.
The position of publishers
Until recently it was common practice for publishers to require authors
to transfer copyright to them, for reasons that were mainly in the
publishers' interests. Namely, it was easy to act against plagiarism and
other copyright infringements, and the publishers' rights portfolios
were orderly and provided a foundation for secondary exploitation of
works. Publishing contracts were set up in such a manner that certain
rights either were retained by the author or were given back by the
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