GERALD C. STONE Founding editor of Newspaper Resrach Journal At home in the journals of his field Former Text and Academic Authors president STONE: The British licensing agreement is "a journal publisher's dream but an author's nightmare: "No compensation for their creative work. "No rights to their article whatsoever.. "Nothing in return for their signature." COMPLETE TEXT: ALPSP copyright policy

The British Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers' "model" licensing agreement for academic journal authors is among the most pernicious little contracts I've ever read. It is either the sole work of a committee of profit-oriented journal publishers or, if academic journal editors were represented among the perpetrators, they were surely duped by the economic interests of their publishers.

On the surface, the contract seems to endorse certain rights for academic authors. Herein lies its crafty design. For example, it allows journal article authors to hold copyright to the article and it obligates the journal, upon article acceptance, "to publish it as soon as we reasonably can."

Also, authors can "use your article for the internal educational or other purposes of your own institution or company" and mount it "on your own or your institution's website" and to use it "in whole or in part, as the basis for your own further publications or spoken presentations."

Big deal.

But an author cannot sell the article or give it away "in ways which would conflict directly with our [the publisher's] commercial business interests."

So a journal article author might be able to provide free copies of his or her own article to students in class ("internal educational purposes"), but not necessarily because doing so might deny the publisher's commercial business interests of collecting royalty fees for duplicating the article.

Duplicating journal articles for classes is a sensitive issue that will be a program topic at this year's TAA convention in New Orleans. Academic authors will be surprised to learn about the rapidly expanding on-line business in rights to copy journal articles and the fees flowing to journal publishers who have discovered a new income stream that can produce 20 cents a page.

But back to the ALPSP contract. Here are some serious concerns:

1. Authors are asked to sign the licensing agreement when they submit articles for review. In the United States, such "contracts" emerge only after the article has been accepted and set in type. These one-paragraph sheets usually accompany the proof copy with the assumption that, should an author refuse to sign, the article is already in type and the journal has already committed to publish. However, in the British version, the assumption is that without a signed agreement, the journal won't even review the submission.
2. The British license includes these passages about the submitted article: "you agree to grant us the exclusive right both to reproduce and/or distribute your article ... ourselves throughout the world in printed, electronic or any other medium, and in turn to authorise others ... to do the same" and "we may sell or distribute it within the journal, on its own, or with other related material." These passages far exceed the first-printing rights that most journals or magazines seek. They give all claim to the article, forevermore and in whatever form, to the journal publisher.
3. There is no mention of royalties or payments to the journal article author.
4. The British license includes two passages about the author's responsibility to ensure that the work is original, that all permissions have been obtained, and that the article does not contain "anything which is libellous, illegal, or infringes anyone's copyright or other rights." These are the kinds of indemnifications that appear in book contracts, but have never been required by U.S. academic journals, to my knowledge.
5. The British license allows the journal "to make necessary editorial changes" although "we will not make any substantial alteration to your article without consulting you." My experience is that authors get proofs of the final article and have approval rights for any changes, including "editorial changes" in advance of publication.
6. "We will do everything we reasonably can to maximise the visibility of the journal, and of your article within it." This is the kind of promise a book author might expect from a publisher but is a rather meaningless warrant by a journal.
7. In case of a copyright infringement, the journal publisher is authorized "to act in your behalf to defend your copyright ... and to retain half of any damages awarded, after deducting our costs." This is a pretty stiff usurpation of damage awards in what is likely to be a rather open-and-shut lawsuit, but it is the only indication that the author might receive some compensation from the article.
8. Once the journal publishes the article, the author cannot sell it. My interpretation is that the author could not use the article or a substantial part of it in his or her subsequent book.

These passages and others in the British licensing agreement make it a journal publisher's dream but an author's nightmare: no compensation for their creative work; no rights to their article whatsoever; nothing in return for their signature.

The Text and Academic Authors Association can and should offer a more level playing field for the creators of intellectual academic property. TAA can be a leader in fashioning a model contract that really is a better deal for academic authors rather than the ALPSP license agreement that makes an already lopsided situation worse.