Despite our best attempts to make the AMS Copyright Policies clear and understandable, the fact that copyright law is complicated (especially in light of the emerging electronic publishing technologies) means that the policies probably do not answer all the questions and concerns of those who are impacted by them. We hope to address at least some of those unanswered questions in this less formal document by expanding the discussion on some topics and using some examples of how copyright law in general and the AMS Copyright Policies in particular affect the use of AMS publications. This document will still not answer all questions, however, and we sincerely hope that AMS members and others who use AMS publications will not hesitate to contact the authors at AMS Headquarters for clarification of issues that may arise (phone: 617-227-2426, ext. 220 or 250; fax: 617-742-8718; e-mail: kseitter@ametsoc.org or mweston@ametsoc.org).
The discussion presented here represents the current thinking regarding how the AMS Copyright Policies will be implemented and practiced. While we hope that it provides guidance to authors and users of AMS publications, it does not represent a policy document approved by the Council and should not be viewed as overriding or superseding the AMS Copyright Policies in any way. It should also not be viewed as legal advice on copyright issues.
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In some cases, copying for personal, educational, or research use is covered under what is called the "fair use" doctrine of copyright law. This is a complicated area of law that evolves as new case law emerges, and it is not possible in this brief document to provide much guidance on what types of copying are or are not allowed under "fair use." The AMS supports the general philosophies espoused by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) concerning the appropriate role that fair use plays in education and research. In particular, the AMS agrees with the interpretations provided in the working document "Fair Use in the Electronic Age: Serving the Public Interest," prepared by the American Association of Law Libraries, American Library Association, Association of Academic Health Sciences Library Directors, Association of Research Libraries, Medical Library Association, and Special Libraries Association. This, and other documents related to copyright are available on the ARL Web site (http://arl.cni.org/scomm/copyright/copyright.html) and the ARL gopher server (arl.cni.org).
For copying that does not fall clearly under the "fair use" doctrine, there are several ways in which the necessary permission can be obtained, and AMS has tried to make the permission granting process as convenient as possible. The most convenient method if the copying is being done by a copy center (either within the university or commercially) is through the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC). Most copy centers have standing accounts with CCC and can obtain permission quickly and easily. While the AMS neither charges nor collects a fee for copying done at university copy centers for faculty, the CCC does charge a small fee for the permission processing. Commercial copy centers that prepare course packets and sell them to students are charged $0.02 per page (a portion of which comes back to AMS as a royalty) plus a processing fee by CCC. A faculty member who wants to make the copies personally for the students or who wants to avoid even the processing fee from CCC can always send a request for permission to AMS Headquarters by mail, fax (617-742-8718), or e-mail (amspubs@ametsoc.org). Headquarters staff will respond to the request as quickly as possible and provide a written permission that can be used by the faculty member to assure the copy center that permission for the copying has been granted.
For all other forms of copying, the fees listed on the inside cover of the journal or on individual articles apply. The CCC can be used to obtain permission and will collect those fees as part of the permission granting process. As with educational copying, alternative permission arrangements can be sought directly from AMS Headquarters.
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The posting of manuscripts and articles on the Internet as World Wide Web (WWW) documents has become quite common. Prior to the recently approved AMS Copyright Policies, all electronic postings of AMS published materials represented a violation of AMS copyright. With the policies being implemented now, however, permission is explicitly provided to the authors to post their articles on their own personal home page. The policies do not allow a copy of an AMS copyrighted article to be placed on a server in any other way, so articles cannot be posted as part of a collection on a so-called "e-print" server.
There are WWW servers that provide a listing of uniform resource locators (URLs) as links to documents posted on other servers, often arranged by subject matter or some other organizational scheme. Since WWW links are treated as citations under the AMS Copyright Policies, a server containing a collection of links is perfectly acceptable (provided it does not reproduce the table of contents of a journal; see section 3 of the AMS Copyright Policies). Thus, while the article itself cannot be posted on an e-print server, the policies provide for the posting of a summary of the article (such as the abstract) with a link to the article on the author's home page.
The intent of this portion of the AMS Copyright Policies is to provide for the posting of articles on the Internet so that they can be accessed by the scientific community while attempting to ensure that the community will have access to the definitive work. The authors can have confidence that the scientific community is accessing accurate versions of a particular work because the work has been obtained directly from AMS as the definitive copy or from the author's own home page.
An author can post his or her work prior to the transfer of the copyright to the AMS, but we urge authors to protect their intellectual property prior to its formal publication. If an author chooses to post his or her work on an e-print server prior to its acceptance and copyright transfer to AMS, we strongly recommend that it include a notice of the type given in either section 4 or 6 of the AMS Copyright Policies. It should be noted that once it is posted on an e-print server, the policies provide for a continuity of access by the scientific community to an electronic copy and allow the e-print server to maintain a copy through the publication process even after copyright has been transferred to the AMS. After formal publication by the AMS, the e-print server must substitute a link to the authors home page in place of the actual copy of the article.
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It is common for an author to reproduce a figure from a previously published article or monograph in a paper he or she is writing. If the figure originally appeared in an AMS publication, then the permission to use "figures, tables, or brief excerpts" stated in the AMS Copyright Notice provides the necessary permission and the author need take no further action other than including the complete citation for the original publication. If the figure originally appeared in a nonAMS publication, the author must determine what sort of permission might be necessary and secure that permission prior to using the figure in his or her manuscript. Most nonprofit scientific and professional societies provide for the use of figures, tables, and brief excerpts in a manner similar to the AMS, but some publishers require written permission to be secured and it is the author's responsibility to obtain this permission.
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When an author's work is accepted for publication by the Society, the copyright for that work must be transferred to the AMS. Having AMS hold the copyright helps to ensure the continuing availability of the work not only through its original publication but also through later derivative works that might be produced by the AMS or by other publishers (for example, a CD-ROM of the contents of a journal or a monograph made up of collected papers on a subject). It also provides a mechanism for AMS to attempt to preserve the scientific integrity of the original work and to help ensure that proper attribution is given the original author(s) in all future uses. While the AMS holds the copyright, the author may continue to retain other specific rights to his or her work. As stated explicitly on the copyright transfer form that is signed by the author, the author retains all other proprietary rights, if any exist, such as patent rights. Additionally, as provided in the policies, the author may reuse any portion of the work for personal use in future lectures, press releases, or reviews without the need to request permission from the AMS as long as the author acknowledges that the work has been published by the AMS and that the AMS holds the copyright. The AMS also grants permission to the author to reuse portions of the work, such as figures, tables, or portions of text, in future publications without needing to request specific permission from the AMS for each individual instance..
The recently approved AMS Copyright Policies also grant to the author the right to disseminate his work electronically through the World Wide Web. If an author chooses to, he or she may post a copy of the publication on the author's personal home page as long as the AMS copyright notice is included (see section 1 of the AMS Copyright Policies). For a paper with multiple authors, each author may post a copy on his or her personal home page. Since some editing of manuscripts takes place by AMS prior to publication, including changes made by authors in page proofs, the final published version of an article will likely be slightly different than the final accepted manuscript that the author may have retained as an electronic file available for posting. The AMS Copyright Policies therefore define the final published article as the "definitive copy" and suggest a notice indicating this be included in any electronic copy posted by an author (see section 8 of the AMS Copyright Policies).
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The AMS copyright transfer form (printed on the last page of the December issues of AMS journals, the last page of the August 1995 Bulletin, and available from Headquarters) has two sections. The top section provides for the signatures of authors indicating transfer of the copyright to the AMS on acceptance for publication. The bottom section provides for the signatures of authors submitting a manuscript done as a work of the U.S. Government that is not subject to copyright.
It has become common practice for authors who are government employees to sign the bottom section of the form and all other authors to sign the top section. In reality, even government employees should often sign the top section providing transfer of the copyright to the AMS. In general, the bottom "Government" section of the transfer form should only be signed by authors who are official government employees and then only when the work being submitted was done as part of the "official duties" of their positions. A government employee who prepares a manuscript on a subject completely separate from his regular duties (say of a review or of historical nature) should not sign the government portion of transfer form even if some or all of the work was done at the government facility during regular working hours.
It should be pointed out that when an article is declared a "work of the U.S. Government" it is not simply that the copyright cannot be transferred to the AMS, but rather, that the work is declared public domain and no copyright protection exists for it at all. Despite numerous articles published each year in AMS journals that have been declared U.S. Government works by the authors, the AMS attempts to carry on its role of steward of the authors' intellectual property for these articles by trying to ensure that the scientific integrety of the work is preserved in any reuse and that proper attribution is given the original authors.
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Copyright law has always been and will continue to be a complicated subject, and most scientists are happy to learn no more about it than is absolutely necessary. Some have even questioned the need for copyright at all. For decades, however, copyright law has fostered an environment in which publishers such as the AMS can broadly distribute scientific results while protecting the intellectual property contained in these works. The current debate over how copyright fits into the world of pervasive electronic dissemination of information and several recent copyright cases involving scientific and educational copying have focussed attention on copyright issues and forced us all to be more aware of how copyright fits into our activities. We hope that the recently approved AMS Copyright Policies and this less formal discussion of copyright issues provides a framework for that greater awareness as well as guidelines for compliance.
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