Reprinted from

R

EIVES

EFCBRUARY 1974

MAR 25 1974

EDITOR'S OFFICE

H. William Koch

and disseminating physics information have been coming faster and faster during the last decade or so, and with them they have brought an increasing. ly urgent need for changes in copyrighting procedures and practices. Every user of American Institute of Physics and its member societies' journals is bound to be affected in some way, as will be the authors contribut ing to the journals, when journal copyright ambiguities and inconsistencies are clarified Will the individual physicist, or his library, be able to continue purchasing primary journals and secondary information products at fair market prices or will he be subsidiz ing the commercial use of these prod ucts in some other form, or in some other country? Will the one quarter of all AIP society members who (according to one count) themselves contribute, as authors, to the physics literature at some time or other be com pletely clear as to their rights to protect the scientific integrity of their own published works? Or will they find that questions concerning the re-use of their works dissolve into a fog of international disagreements?

The issues involved in journal copyrights have scientific as well as financial significance; they are also fundamental and critical at this time Socety officers are concerning themselves more and more with the issues and feel the need for involving society members in the problems and the resolution of these problems.

The scientific issues are at times subtle, relating to rewritten abstracts that attempt to duplicate authors' original abstracts, uncorrected pages

H Wiliam Koch is director of the American institute of Physics.

inaccurate translations into another language. But i financial implications are clear. I shall present here some estimate of the substantial reduction in AIP and member-society income represented by subscriptions lost as a result of unlicensed publication of complete issues of our journals in foreign markets, of unlicensed use of abstracts, and of incased photocopying -all matters related to the copyright questions. The sum could be as high as $1 milion per year, compare this to the total subscription income of AIP and its societies, in 1973, of $4 million (from primary journals) and $275.000 (from secondary services), and you will see why AIP and its member societies cannot afford to reglect copyright issues In fact, if the balance becomes very much worse, one can see how the entire physics-publishing operations of All' and its societics would become im. periled with repercussions that would extend far beyond the AIP society membership.

I should point out at this stage that there is no intention of attempting to limit the photocopying or reproduction of single journal articles by individual physicists for their own use. Indeed, we take a favorable attitude to the increasing use of the primary journal material, such as in abstract journals or in translations by foreign publishers. This is, after all, in keeping with the Institute's stated aim, the "advancement and diffusion of the knowledge of physics

But satisfactory agreements must be worked out between the copyright owner and the republisher to protect the scientific interests of the authors and the financial investments of the publisher. Unless agreements are completed, problems are bound to develop Typical of the existing prob

lems are those, discussed in this article, that arise from wholesale coverto-cover copying of all, or paris of AIP and member-society journals by foreign institutions, other publishers and itbraries.

The problems

All of the primary and secondary journals of the AIP and its member societies are copyrighted see figure 1 for the complete list. The upright owner (AIP or member society thereby enjoys, according to one definitio "the exclusive right, granted by law for a certain number of years to make and dispose of and otherwise to control copies of the journals. But this protection has disadvantages as well as advantages arising from the fundamental limitation of statutary copyright generally to the "expression of ideas in a published work." The copyright pro tects against outright copying or paraphrasing, but not against a subsequent original work that utilizes the same idea.3

There is a marked contrast between copyright and patent issuing practices. Patents are thoroughly researched and eventually granted to protect the ideas themselves, copyright is perfunctoruy registered, without research, when the published work and its copyright notice are presented at the Copyright Office and a $6.00 fee is paid Also to establish proof of violation of copyright one must prove actual copying of the work, proof of patent violation, on the other hand, may be found irrespective of whether the defendant's work is indeed a copy or is an independent creation. Incidentally, there is commonlaw protection against copying of unpublished works.

In seeking adequate copyright protection for the journals, AIP and its so

cieties are naturally trying to protect their francial investment. Currently an $8 Ton per year enterprise, this phys pub shing business is worth more than $30 million when integrated ever the past five years. However, there is another aspect that must also be cons dered AIP and society jour"mals contain almost 90% of all the physis research and education results published in the US. The journals provide a means for establishing scientific standards, they are the public recond of research performed by members of A'P wees, and they are the basic rescerce embodying the knowledge of phys that AIP and its member socines are chartered to advance and d Tune

So what is wrong with copyright as far as we are concerned? The three banc masons for its inadequacy are > The ant quated copyright law of 19, which could not anticipate new engying technologies such as computerized remation systems, photoicv ¥a3dreropublahiing

♦ Hard exparson in the applications ɗ these techniques, without regard for cght protection and, therefore, without recompense for lost subscrip

Individual physicists have traditionaliv approved of the rapid and wide d semina! n of science information made pran hle by the photocopying of journal a ies Their attitude cod

te summed up as 'It's great; who cares about the financial and legal dets. " Third of emphasis on easy copying

is nation may have been ap pirate ten years ago before other sign fir an considerations became as empei, ng as they are today. But we The now recognize that a means has to he developed for obtaining recompense for the production costs of the journals, dm; to the elusiveness and pervasive. ness of the new copying technologies. Otherwise acety dues, member sub Bempton rates and page charges for physicists will have to increase, or the Journals and the societies will have to alop the operations.

Although AIP and its societies have been actively developing techniques for accomplishing and stimulating we dinem ration of physics results, there developments must be coupled with an appropriate sharing of expenses by in

stitutional users, such as libraries, universities and research laboratories both in the US and abroad. Not only does inadequate sharing exist in the US to. day, but the situation is being aggravated by the rapid growth in the tendencies of various nations to reproduce and disseminate, within their boundaries, scientific and technical information originating in other countries without recompense to the original publishers for the resulting losses in subscription income. Because 55% of the 300 000 subscriptions sold by AIP for itself and its member societies each year are to foreign readers and institutions, the significance to AIP and societies of these international developments is enormous, representing several million dollars per year.

Three examples

To be more specific about these developments let the give in some detail three examples; these are cases where AIP and society journals are reproduced by others on an inclusive, coverto cover basis. They concern the photocopying, for sale, of our journais by the USSR, the copying of abstracts by the Institution of Electrical Engineers in London for use in Physics Abstracts, and the reproduction of articles by the National Lending Library in England for its customers in the UK. These three examples are typical of the prob lems we are beginning to face on many fronts as massive operations threaten to displace the roles of AIP and its societies as publishers.

Last year the USSR signed the Universal Copyright Convention (effective 27 May 1973), and one result has been that we now have some details of the extent of cover to-cover photocopying of journals the Soviet Union The dia in Table I. provided by the USSR, show that some 15 AIP and socey journals are currently being pho tocopied and sold- every page of every IKKUE in the USSR. The number of ogies of each issue is put at an average of 400, and sales are made at antically set subscription prices to USSR and east Furopean customers. The and tiral income AIP would have receed had it sold these copies amounts to more than $300 000 pe year.

We have other data relating to com plate translations of AIP and society journals made in the USSR, but no detailed information on the books lected papers, either photocopied or translated from our journal, that we know in sotre instances are being prodiced in quantities of about 30 000 cuples each.

With the signing of the Univer »l Copyright Convention by the USSR There is some hope that we can develop equitable agreements with them cov

▸ dollar payments to AIP for lost subscriptions for some journals

royalty-free permission for AIP and the Optical Society of America to continue their translations from Russian into English of 15 Soviet physics journals, including about half of the Soviet physics published in journals, in return

for.

▸ reproduction privileges in the USSR for some of our journals

▷ reductions in the number of complete copies of AIP and society journals produced in the USSR, competing with our own sales in Asia and both western and eastern Europe.

Negotiations now in progress are expected to set up a similar pattern of future agreements with China, India and other countries.

My second specific example concerns Physics Abstracts, produced in London by the Institution of Electrical Engineers. This publication uses, verbatim, every abstract from every journal published by AIP and its societies. Abstracts taken from AIP and society journals represent a large fraction-more than 25% of the total numbers of journal abstracts in Physics Abstracts

In recent times, increases in the amount of physics literature to be covered and in the unit cost of including each abstract combined to force up the subscription prices to Physics Abstracts, the key IFE service (now at $380 per year compared to $12 per year in 1967). The result was the virtual elimination of the individual physicist subscriber from the market for comprehensive abstracts services and the concentration of IEE on institutional subscribers. On the other hand AP's obligation to attempt to serve individual members with useful abstract services continued.

In order to meet tha' obligation, AIP has negotiated with IEE to supply AIPs abstracts in computer readable form and to be recompensed equitably for the substantial savings accruing to IEE as a result Part of the agreement would result in income to assist in the improvement in secondary services of the sort listed in Table 2 and supplied by AIP to individua. Thus the agreement would have financial as well as scientific implications and would provide TEE with Irense 1 use of AIP's copyrighted ab stracts Abstracts written by authors and reviewed by ed tors are just as much a part of the journal article as are figures, tables, and individual paragraphs, all of which are protected by copyrights

We hope that negotiations with IEE will lead to a continued use of our author-produced abstracts together with some arrangements for sharing of the francisi ret:rn from the institutional sale of phys secondary ser Thu Al rod supper the de velopment of this kind of service for its