Creative Commons is excited to launch a beta version of its “Returning Authors Rights: Termination of Transfer” tool....It’s a beta demo so it doesn’t produce any useable results at this stage. We have launched it to get your feedback.
Briefly, the U.S. Copyright Act gives creators a mechanism by which they can reclaim rights that they sold or licensed away many years ago. Often artists sign away their rights at the start of their careers when they lack sophisticated negotiating experience, access to good legal advice or any knowledge of the true value of their work so they face an unequal bargaining situation. The “termination of transfer” provisions are intended to give artists a way to rebalance the bargain, giving them a “second bite of the apple.” By allowing artists to reclaim their rights, the U.S. Congress hoped that authors could renegotiate old deals or negotiate new deals on stronger footing....A longer explanation of the purpose of the “termination of transfer” provisions is set out in this FAQ.
Despite this admirable Congressional intention, the provisions are very complex and have not been frequently used. CC’s tool is intended to go some way towards redressing that....Unfortunately, the termination provisions are currently so complex and technical that this tool can only serve an informational role. Many aspects of the “termination of transfer” provisions require legal analysis which is impossible to code so we are working on linking the tool to legal referrals. This FAQ provides an explanation of the tool’s intended architecture....
We have set up a page on the Creative Commons wiki to gather comments....
Comment. I've never heard of a researcher using this provision to reclaim rights to a published journal article. If any one knows a past case, please drop me a line. I'd also like to hear about any researcher who uses the provision in the future to reclaim key rights, especially for the purpose of providing OA to the peer-reviewed full-text.
Update. Read Lawrence Lessig's blog post on the right of termination and transfer. The right doesn't kick in until an agreement is 35 years old, which makes it moot for most journal articles. Journals that don't provide OA to 35 year old articles, and don't let authors do it themselves, are an endangered species.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 12/23/2006 03:45:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
