I have no ax to grind in this matter, but would ask the following questions: 1) If authors only give nonexclusive rights to publishers, publishers will then not have legal standing to sue for infringement, and it will be the individual author's responsibility to take action and pay all expenses pertaining thereto. Is that a burden authors wish to bear? (There are at least some kinds of infringement that authors need to be concerned about, to protect the integrity of their work.) 2) What does "by default" mean? Copyright law defines the owner of copyright to be the author (or, in the case of a work made for hire, the employer). There can be no "default" giving any other parties joint ownership unless a specific written agreement is signed to that effect. 3) If subscription costs are held flat for five years, does that mean that journals cannot expand in length over that period of time? (I understand that the increase in size of journals is one of the factors that has contributed to driving up subscription prices.) 4) How is the "excellence" of a journal to be assessed? Are journals reviewed anywhere (except, occasionally, in the Times Higher Education Supplement)? Who is to tell a publisher which journals to drop? Sandy Thatcher At 5:32 PM -0400 5/15/12, LIBLICENSE wrote: >From: Bernard Rentier - IMAP <[log in to unmask]> >Date: Tue, 15 May 2012 08:32:32 +0200 > >To answer Alicia Wise's query, 6 proposals of positive things from >publishers that should be encouraged : > >Allow systematically and under no condition and at no cost depositing >the peer-reviewed postprint - either the author's refereed, revised >final draft or - even better for the Publishers publicity - the >publisher's version of record in the author's institutional >repository. > >Remove from authors' contracts the need to sign away their rights and >transform it into a "non exclusive license" of their rights. > >Agree that by default, part of the rights on an article belong to the >author's Institution if public and/or to the Funding organization, if >public. > >Reduce significantly (or at least freeze for 5 years) the purchasing >cost of periodicals, then increase at the real inflation rate, >officially measured in Western countries (1-3 % per year). > >Reduce significantly the number of periodical titles published, aiming >for excellence and getting rid of the mediocre title which are bundled >in Elsevier's "Big Deals" and similar "deals" by other publishers. >This would reduce their monopolistic position. > >Reward Institutions for the work provided by reviewers, editors and >authors, either directly or indirectly through lower subscription >costs. > >Bernard Rentier -- Sanford G. Thatcher 8201 Edgewater Drive Frisco, TX 75034-5514 e-mail: [log in to unmask] Phone: (214) 705-1939 Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sanford.thatcher "If a book is worth reading, it is worth buying."-John Ruskin (1865) "The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything."-Walter Bagehot (1853)