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Who Owns the Copyright on Federal Research?

A colleague wrote to me today at the AAUP in response to a post I had made about taking the rights t9 copyright federal researech away from publishers.
Steve,

Last spring, I sent off a paper to the Journal of Geophysical Research, a  non profit owned by the American Geophysical Union.  To do a non-copyright publication would have cost me about $6,000, for the  AGU copyrighted version, $3,000.

I went with the copyrighted version. For federally funded research!  very expensive,
Seelye

Dear Seelye

The American Geophysical Union has apparently found that for $3000 they can review and publish your paper.

BUT they still want you to pay $3000 to retain the copyright!

Why?  Presumably they see the $3000 profit as needed to run the society.  In other words, the AGU is using this copyright to make money.

This raises a serious question.  Have you the right to sell a copyright created with US and UW dollars to the AGU?

It seems to me that the real answer is that societies, like for profit publishers, need a new business model.

 

Original Post:

>
> On Feb 3, 2012, at 2:40 PM, Stephen Schwartz wrote:
>

>
> “The Internet has not changed the cost of getting things written, printed
> and distributed.  It has only shifted the costs in various directions. What
> has changed is that the Internet (in particular the success of the World
> Wide Web) has created a very false impression that everything should be free
> and anyone should be able to do anything they want with other people’s
> creative works.”
>
> Is this true?
>
> I do not think it can be.  Leaving aside Elsevier and other profitable
> publishers, many scientific societies as well as organizations like the
> American Heart Association depend on the income from paper publications.
> urge
> They, along with the “for profits” FIERCELY protect their ownership of
> publically paid for IP.  There are, however, newer “for profit” efforts to
> create sustainable models where publication is free but review (and the
> attendant publicity) cost a fee.  By and large these fhese charges are
> reasonable …. 1000 to 2000 is the range I have seen, but appear large
> enough to be profitable.
>
> What I think would solve all this is federal legislation prohibiting the
> copyrighting of science or reports of any other endeavor financed more than
> 50% with government funds.  If Nature, Science, NEJM, the AMA or the Cancer
> Society want to make a buck off of federaly funded research, they would stil
> be free to this by focussing on review articles and news.


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