Re: ENTCS

Re: ENTCS

[John Baez]

Paul Taylor writes:

> In point of fact, Elsevier DOES NOT require ENTCS authors to
> transfer copyright.
>
> When they were processing my paper for last year's CTCS, they
> asked me for a copyright transfer, but I refused.  Instead,
> they promptly offered me a license agreement.  Although the
> first version of this was also unacceptable, I succeeded in
> negotiating another one, which I signed, and they published
> my paper.

When I was an editor for an Elsevier-edited journal -
before I decided they were so nasty I should resign -
I discovered how this works.

They're scared to death that people will switch to free electronic
journals.  But, they don't want to openly cave in and institute a
universal policy of letting authors keep the copyrights to their
work.   So, they cut a deal with anyone who pressures them, but
don't advertise this.

For more on the evils of Reed Elsevier, and what to do about it,
see this:

http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/journals.html

To see the copyright policies of most publishers, see this:

http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php

Best,
jb

ENTCS

[Paul Taylor]

I am sure that I speak for all of us in the category theory
community when I say that I am very (relieved and) pleased to
hear from Mike Mislove that he and ENTCS are alive and well
following the hurricane.

On the other hand, I am alarmed by the keenness of Mike (and
the many conference organisers who use the services of ENTCS)
to give away their colleagues' intellectual property to a company
whose sole contribution nowadays to the process of publication
is to run a web server.

In point of fact, Elsevier DOES NOT require ENTCS authors to
transfer copyright.

When they were processing my paper for last year's CTCS, they
asked me for a copyright transfer, but I refused.  Instead,
they promptly offered me a license agreement.  Although the
first version of this was also unacceptable, I succeeded in
negotiating another one, which I signed, and they published
my paper.

You can obtain a LaTeX version of this agreement from
	www.cs.man.ac.uk/~pt/drafts/Elsevier-licence.tex

I urge all of my colleagues to use this, and not give a
commercial publisher the monopoly of research in theoretical
computer science.  I fully understand that younger researchers
in particular feel that they have no alternative but to give
in to pressure, being in a polically weak position myself.
But I have demonstrated that even individuals can have an
effect, simply by saying no.   If more of us say no then
we will succeed in recovering what is properly ours.

Paul Taylor

PS there is lots of new stuff on the ASD web page since my
last posting to "categories" about it.