T&F versus SPARC Authors Addendum

[Peter Hirtle <pbh6@cornell.edu>]

A faculty member at Cornell recently asked me what the 
differences are between the standard transfer of copyright 
offered by Taylor and Francis and the terms of the SPARC Authors 
Addendum.  I am curious if anyone else has done such an exercise, 
and if your results correspond with mine.

First, the Taylor and Francis copyright transfer is not the worst 
in the world.  If you look at their copyright information page 
for authors at <http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/copyright.asp>, 
it is clear that they are sensitive to the issues associated with 
co-opting for themselves the intellectual product of authors, and 
they are trying to ensure that the author's retain some rights. 
Nevertheless, there are items in the T&F that seem to be better 
addressed in SPARC document.

Here are some of the things that the SPARC Author's Addendum 
offers, and my assessment of what the T&F agreement offers in 
comparison

1.  Institutional Repositories

T&F allows you to put your final work into an institutional or 
subject repository, but only 18 months after an item has been 
published.  With SPARC, you can do it immediately.

2.  Use in teaching

SPARC guarantees you the right to make copies of your article for 
use in the classes that you teach.

T&F allows you to make printed copies for use in your teaching - 
so long as "such copies are not offered for sale or distributed 
in any systematic way."  The latter phrase is often 
publisher-speak for course packs.  It is unclear to me if T&F 
would allow you to distribute copies to all students in your 
class.  Note as well that there is no mention of electronic 
distribution - only printed copies.  Could putting a link in your 
syllabus to the article on your institutional repository be 
considered to be systematic electronic distribution, and hence a 
violation of the contract?

3.  Teaching use by others at your institution or outside of your 
institution

SPARC guarantees the right to authorize others to use the article 
in teaching and research, both at your home institution and 
elsewhere.

T&F allows you to "facilitate the distribution of the Article" at 
your home institution - but only if the work has been "produced 
within the scope of an Author's employment."  That language 
echoes the definition of "work for hire" in the Copyright Act 
(defined in the act as "a work prepared by an employee within the 
scope of his or her employment.")  Copyright in a work for hire 
would belong to the University - and not to the Author - and so 
granting the University the right to use it does not seem to be 
particularly generous.  Almost all faculty publications are not 
works for hire, however.  I would read this clause, therefore, to 
mean that no one else at your home institution could have the 
right to use material.  (Of course, other faculty could 
potentially point to the DSpace server - so long as T&F doesn't 
think that use is "systematic.")

As for authorizing others outside of your home institution to be 
able to use the article in teaching and research, that is not 
mentioned.  You can share a copy with an external colleague, but 
your distribution cannot be systematic (and again, course use is 
often considered to be systematic).  Outsiders can only ask T&F 
for permission to use your work.

4.  Prepare derivatives of the work.

SPARC guarantees the right to modify and use the article in later 
articles, books, and other publications, without having to ask 
permission of the publisher.

T&F allows you the right to hand out copies at a conference; 
include the article in an unpublished thesis; republish the item 
without change in compilations of your own writings (but not in 
any other anthology volume); or expand it into a book.  You are 
not explicitly authorized to write other articles that build on 
our expand on the work (though the information page cited above 
does claim that "Nothing in the copyright transfer agreement is 
intended to restrict an author's rights... to revise, adapt, 
prepare derivative works, present orally or otherwise make use of 
the contents of the article.")

5.  PDFs

SPARC guarantees the right to receive from the publisher a PDF 
version of the article, as published.

T&F will not allow you to use the PDF they produce of the 
article.

As you can see, the differences between the two aren't huge, but 
they do exist.  My biggest worry is what happens if other faculty 
start pointing to an article on an institutional repository, 
rather than making students purchase copies in course packs. 
Would T&F claim this is systematic distribution and force you to 
remove the item from the repository?

Thoughts?

Peter B. Hirtle
CUL Intellectual Property Officer and
    IRIS Technology Strategist
Note New Mailing Address & Fax:
Instruction, Research, and Information Services Division
Cornell University Library
215 Olin Library
Ithaca, NY  14853-5301
pbh6@cornell.edu
t.  607.255-4033
f.  607/255-2493