PRESS RELEASE FROM STM
20 April 2011


STM Publishers clarify position on negotiating authors’ rights


STM today issues a clarifying statement on negotiating rights for institutional repository postings and author rights. Publishers appreciate that some institutions wish to showcase their achievements in institutional repositories. The statement signals that publishers are ready to engage in discussion about how best this goal can be achieved. However, STM and its member publishers caution against conflating content license negotiations with author rights issues.

‘STM Statement on Negotiating Rights for Institutional Repository Postings and Author Rights’ was released today by the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers and is available on the STM website at:

http://www.stm-assoc.org/2011_04_19_STM_statement_on_licensing_and_authors_rights.pdf

Publishers are committed to the wide dissemination and unrestricted access to content they publish, on the understanding that services that publishers provide must be paid for in some way. “The publishing community has a strong track record of responsiveness to authors with respect to scholarly use and re-use,” the statement says. “[J]ournal publishing agreements generally address, and have addressed for many years, issues about scholarly use and re-use by authors of their own work, including questions about compliance with research funder policies such as the NIH.” 

The statement follows proposals that content license negotiations between institutions and publishers be extended to encompass such rights. These proposals  suggest that author reuse rights, and the right to post in institutional repositories, could become part of such content license negotiations. STM  has a different view:

“We hold the view that conflating author rights issues and institutional content licenses serves only to add greater complexity and possible legal uncertainty to such licenses without adding meaningful benefits for authors.”

Instead, the statement encourages ongoing dialog, objective research and assessment on the impact of institutional repositories. It points to the PEER project as key to help “develop and refine evidence-based policies and practices in this vital and evolving digital ecosystem.”

-	ENDS – 

  See for example: Ivy Anderson “Model Language for Author Rights in Library Content Licenses”, Research Library Issues; a Bimonthly Report from ARL, CNI, and SPARC, no. 269 (April 2010)

STM is the leading global trade association for academic and professional publishers. It has over 110 members in 27 countries who each year collectively publish nearly 66% of all journal articles and tens of thousands of monographs and reference works. STM members include learned societies, university presses, private companies, new starts and established players.

Contact: Kim Beadle, STM, [log in to unmask] or phone +44 1865 339321

Following a meeting of its publishing Heads of House and ratification of its outcomes by the STM Board, STM has adopted the following policy statements on access.

STM on access
-	Publishers are committed to wide dissemination and unrestricted access to their content; the services that publishers provide must be paid for in some way. 
-	STM supports any and all models of access that are sustainable, and that ensure the integrity and permanence of the scholarly record on which progress is built. 
-	STM does not support unfunded mandates that constrain scholarly authors or affect the sustainability of the publishing enterprise.

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