On the publicly-accessible PLoS website we find (http://www.plosone.org/static/editorial#copyright):
> 3. Copyright and Licensing > > Open Access Agreement > > Upon submitting an article, authors are asked to indicate their agreement to > abide by an open access Creative Commons license (CC-BY). Under the terms of > this license, authors retain ownership of the copyright of their articles. > However, the license permits any user to download, print out, extract, reuse, > archive, and distribute the article, so long as appropriate credit is given > to the authors and the source of the work. The license ensures that the > article will be available as widely as possible and that the article can be > included in any scientific archive. Again, I’m no lawyer nor a representative of PLoS, but there does not appear to be any attempt by PLoS to claim any rights in an article - except the right, given by the author under CC-BY, to reproduce it publicly. David On 13 Apr 2015, at 14:00, Heather Morrison <[email protected]> wrote: > Thank you to Graham Triggs for clarifying that his agreement that in the case > of PLOS CC-BY licenses, PLOS is presumably the licensor is a "personal > opinion as a member of the public". > > PLOS authors retain copyright. CC licenses are a waiver of one's rights under > copyright. This suggests that one of the following must be true: > > - PLOS authors, not PLOS, are the licensors of their works as copyright > owners > - PLOS is the licensor, and is legally entitled to do this because of a > separate agreement between PLOS authors and PLOS (e.g. copyright transfer or > author sub-licensing to PLOS) > - PLOS is granting CC licenses where they do not have the required legal > rights > > PLOS has been a vocal advocate of CC-BY, encouraging other publishers to use > this license and decision-makers to require the license through policy, as > well as an advocate of openness in science. I think it is reasonable to > request that a PLOS spokesperson respond to this question on this public > listserv. If someone can forward this question or provide me with the > appropriate contact person at PLOS, that would be most appreciated. > > best, > > -- > Dr. Heather Morrison > Assistant Professor > École des sciences de l'information / School of Information Studies > University of Ottawa > http://www.sis.uottawa.ca/faculty/hmorrison.html > Sustaining the Knowledge Commons http://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/ > [email protected] > > > > _______________________________________________ > GOAL mailing list > [email protected] > http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal _______________________________________________ GOAL mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
