To the Editor: The Journal's support (Sept. 23 issue)1 for theproposal of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to makethe results of NIH-sponsored research more readily availableto the public2 is commendable, as is its policy of making articlesfreely available six months after the publication date. However,the editorial by Drs. Drazen and Curfman makes misleading claimsregarding copyright. The editorialists say that the Journal"will continue to seek redress if others use what we publishfor commercial purposes." Authors would benefit most from thewidest possible distribution of their work, commercial or noncommercial.They also suggest that copyright must be held by publishersin order to protect "intellectual integrity." But whether ornot copyright is transferred, authors retain the moral rightsassociated with an article, including the rights of integrityand of attribution.
Not owning copyright in no way prevents a publisher from takinglegal action in the case of misuse or misrepresentation. Sinceboth the publishers' and the authors' reputations are at stake,publishers should defend scientific integrity — whichdoes not depend on ownership of copyright. Scientific integrityshould not be used as a smokescreen by publishers to concealtheir self-interest.
Matthew Cockerill, Ph.D. Jan Velterop, Drs. BioMed Central London W1T 4LB, United Kingdom velterop{at}biomedcentral.com
Drs. Cockerill and Velterop report that they are both directorsof BioMed Central.
References
Drazen JM, Curfman GD. Public access to biomedical research. N Engl J Med 2004;351:1343-1343. [Free Full Text]
To the Editor: The discussion of copyright issues is predicatedon a misunderstanding of the implications for intellectual propertyconsiderations of the policy proposed by the NIH. Many publisherscurrently deposit some or all of their journals' content inPubMed Central, the full-text version of PubMed. When publishersdo so, they do not relinquish copyright to the articles. Inits "Supplemental Terms of Use for Proceedings of the NationalAcademy of Sciences (PNAS)," for example, the National Academyof Sciences lists a number of binding stipulations for usersaccessing PNAS through PubMed Central.1 These include the explicitrequirement that any further reproduction of the journal (beyondstandard terms of fair use) in any medium be accompanied bythe written permission of the academy. In other words, it issimply not true that, as Drazen and Curfman state, "under theproposed rule, a commercial entity could republish [an articlefrom the Journal], highlighting the benefits but ignoring thedisadvantages, and attribute the work to the Journal."
Andy Gass Public Library of Science San Francisco, CA 94107 agass{at}plos.org
References
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Supplemental Terms of Use for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). (Accessed December 1, 2004, at http://www.pnas.org/misc/nlmterms.shtml.)
Drs. Drazen and Curfman reply: We believe that publishers shouldretain copyright to articles, because it is central to protectingtheir integrity. It is not clear from the language of the NIHproposal that copyright would be maintained in the version ofthe work they propose to host, and certain participants in thedebate, including the Public Library of Science, have proposedusing Creative Commons' protections, which would allow broaduse, only by attribution and not granted permission, of researchpublications, including commercial republication with the potentialfor alterations.
One of our objectives in writing the editorial was to ensurethat the issue of copyright was addressed. We believe it isimportant to be on the record with our views and experiences,and we have filed the editorial with the NIH as part of thepublic-commentary period on the proposed regulations concerningopen access in the hope that the NIH will specifically addresscopyright protections. We do not assume that the copyright processesor rules of PubMed Central, to which Gass refers, would carryover to the NIH repository, because other elements of the currentimplementation of PubMed Central are incompatible with the NIHproposal.
We disagree with Cockerill and Velterop that publishers caneffectively protect the integrity of published research withoutowning copyright — our experiences have shown us how aggressiveand cavalier some infringers can be. Authors are typically notin a position to detect or prosecute copyright violations. Moreimportant, journals, along with authors, have a justifiableinterest in protecting the intellectual integrity of publishedarticles, since journals invest substantial editorial resourcesin ensuring the validity and accuracy of the research. Vigorousprotection of copyright is clearly in the best interest of themedical community and of the patients it serves.
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