Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 19:45:46 -0500

There is no inconsistency about having OA articles or journals licensed through the CCC if the version of OA being used is CC-BY-NC, anymore than there is anything inconsistent about an OA publisher of monographs online selling POD versions of these monographs. Being OA does not exclude all markets.  For-profit corporations wishing to make use of the articles and publishers wishing to include articles in anthologies sold in print form can license these paid uses through the CCC.

It should also be noted that the CCC receives monies from other RROs overseas that do copying of U.S. copyrighted works registered with the CCC and often this copying only identifies the journal title, not the specific article(s) copied, so the monies cannot be distributed to individual authors, but only to the owner of the journal. Even though BMCR holds no copyright in the individual articles, it still holds copyright in the journal as a collective work.

Sandy Thatcher


At 5:46 PM -0400 4/15/14, LIBLICENSE wrote:

From: Camilla MacKay <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2014 17:21:53 -0400

An experience with the CCC and article licensing that might be of interest:

About three or four years ago, Bryn Mawr Classical Review received a
check (something under $100, as I recall) from the CCC for licensing
BMCR reviews. BMCR is open access, and moreover, authors sign no
copyright transfer agreements, so BMCR does not hold copyright in the
reviews published, and should not have been receiving a payment for
licensing fees in any case. I called the CCC to ask about the money,
and was told that we could choose to opt out of CCC licensing, so I
did. I think we must have deposited that check; there was no way to
get the money to the rightful owners because the specific reviews were
not identified.

When I checked the CCC site just now, I see that it's still possible
to request a "special order" for BMCR articles. I don't know what
would happen if someone tried to license a BMCR article now, but at
least we haven't received any more checks. But there seem to be plenty
of OA journals in the CCC database with licensing options; do they all
know they're represented?

Camilla MacKay
(co-editor, BMCR)