3 ms·
PhD student here. I think refusing to transfer copyright is a better option in fields that have no open access journals, like my field. While I haven't publish
by btrettel 9y ago
PhD student here.
I think refusing to transfer copyright is a better option in fields that have no open access journals, like my field. While I haven't published in a journal yet, the discussions I had with a few representatives of publishers at a conference suggested that some publishers will accept only a license to print if you ask. One publisher even showed me an example of an article where they did not own the copyright.
Pre-prints are also a good option, but you won't own the changes made in review if you transfer copyright (for a journal that is not open access).
- greeneggs 9y agoThere are many examples of articles where the publisher does not own the copyright; any article written by US government scientists is not subject to copyright. Preprints are an excellent option, and every field should make distributing preprints at the standard servers (Arxiv, Biorxiv, etc.) the norm. The broad visibility from open preprint servers seems to be evolving into a different kind of peer review, to the extent that if, in my field, I see a published article with no arXiv preprint I wonder if the authors are trying to hide something.