[Air-l] Re: conference paper availability

[Dan L Burk]

This is not a legal issue.

The question of "publication" is irrelevant for most copyright purposes. 
Publication is no longer a criterion for obtaining copyright in the United
States (or other Berne signatory nations) and hasn't been since the late
1980s.  Copyright attaches to the article as soon as it is fixed in a
tangible medium of expression, whether or not it is ever "published." 
"Reprint" is not a legal or statutory status.

"Publication" can affect the duration of copyright in certain
circumstances, or affect some choice of law questions, but those matters
aren't at issue here.

There may be customs of trade in certain disciplines, or a variety of
business reasons, as to why a traditional "publisher" would be reluctant to
issue an article that has previously been available in an electronic
archive, but that has nothing to do with copyright.

DLB

On 16 Oct 2004, Nancy Baym wrote:
> >but here is another question related to this issue that jumps into my
> >mind:
> >as far as i know, in fiction writing (at least up to 4-5 years ago), if
> >you post a story you've written online, even if it is only your home
> >page, it is legally considered to be published. That means it is
> >copyrighted; but it also means any publication of that story in a
> >journal or anthology would legally be a reprint, which most publishers
> >and journals are reluctant to do. Is this the same with regards to
> >academic articles posted, say, in conference archives?
> 
> We looked into this when we created the paper archive and it is our 
> understanding that so long as the papers' accessibility is restricted 
> (in our case, only members), archives such as ours are not 
> publications and do not therefore preclude publication in journals 
> and other venues. This is different from a homepage which can be 
> accessed by anyone. This is another reason we've not made the 
> archives publicly accessible. If any of you have legal/publishing 
> expertise on this topic and would like to affirm, correct, or clarify 
> that would be great.
> 
> Thanks for raising the point, Reuven.
> 
> Nancy
> 
> -- 
> Nancy Baym	http://www.ku.edu/home/nbaym
> Communication Studies, University of Kansas
> Bailey Hall, 1440 Jayhawk Blvd., Room 102, Lawrence, KS 66045-7574, USA
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Dan L. Burk
Oppenheimer, Wolff & Donnelly Professor
University of Minnesota Law School
229 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455 USA