BioOne, US, a web-based aggregator of research in biological, ecological and environmental sciences, has announced the release of a model publication agreement that addresses current trends in copyright assignment and requirements by NIH and other funding agencies for digital repository deposits. The agreement, developed at the request of several BioOne publishers, may be of interest to any scholarly publishing organisation that is seeking a clear, concise, and legally vetted publication agreement.
The agreement allows author(s) to retain copyright, while granting the publisher both a temporally limited and exclusive right to first publish, and a perpetual, non-exclusive right to publish, distribute, and sublicense. In response to NIH's Public Access Policy (passed by Congress in December 2007) and other institutional and subject repository deposit mandates, the agreement allows authors to deposit their work in digital repositories directly, or permits the publisher to deposit to the National Library of Medicine on their behalf.
Legal firm Morrison & Foerster LLC provided pro bono legal assistance to BioOne in drafting the Model Publication Agreement. Pamela Pasti, Of Counsel in the Technology Transactions Group of Morrison & Foerster's San Francisco office, was assigned to the project. Over the course of the following year, she worked with BioOne to review existing publication agreements, notable author's addenda, and articles describing emerging trends in copyright law as it relates to academic publishing.
The final Agreement is currently available for free on the BioOne website at www.bioone.org. An accompanying 'roadmap' is also available to provide publishers adopting the agreement with guidance on specific author and publisher rights and amendable sections.
