Re: Science Commons, SPARC Announce New Tools for Scholarly Publishing

[Gene Sprouse <sprouse@ridge.aps.org>]

The MIT Press, which I believe is overseen by the Director of 
Libraries, provides us with a unique laboratory to study the 
interaction between publishers and authors(as represented by 
librarians).  On one hand, the Director of Libraries is a strong 
proponent of copyright addenda, and on the other hand, the 
copyright statements of some MIT Press journals are much more 
restrictive than those of many society publishers.

The copyright statement of the MIT Press journal "Artificial 
Life"  <http://mitpress.mit.edu/authors/ journals/ARTL.pdf> does 
not even allow authors to post an article on their own web site 
for 12 months after publication.  Would MIT Press accept the 
copyright addendum proposed by the MIT Libraries? The balancing 
of author rights and the publishers' need to fund their added 
value is a difficult situation.  I am hopeful that MIT Libraries 
and MIT Press will be able to come up with a creative solution to 
this most difficult problem that is confronting all of us.

Sincerely,
Gene D. Sprouse
Editor-in-Chief
American Physical Society