A topic in Academic standards and scholarly / scientific values
One issue of academic standards concerns the trend for publishers to ask authors to waive their legal rights in exchange for publishing their work.
Why is there an issue?
Since the advent of on-line publication of reference works, some respectable and prestigious publishers (e.g., Oxford University Press*) have taken to asking authors to waive the right to integrity of their work. I explain why scholars should reject contracts with such clauses.
In law, authors have protected moral rights.
You have copyright in your work, which means you can choose if and when it is published (unless and until you waive that right, gift or sell the copyright, or agree to a license that allows a publisher to take over some or all of the rights). It may be reasonable to sell or license your work to a publisher in exchange for them printing and distributing your work, and/or a fee or royalty on sales.
You have a right to have your work published under your name, or a nom de plume, or (if you prefer) anonymously. Generally academic authors are expected to publish under their own names!
You also have a right to the integrity of your work. Even if you agree to a publisher publishing your work for you, they should not materially change it without your knowledge and approval. Generally publishers are fine about this. They may suggest edits and indeed ‘improve’ your writing style, but normally you see the proofs of the editing work and have final approval of the version going to print.
However, in recent years major publishers have included a clause in their contracts for some types of academic work asking authors to waive the right to the integrity of their work.
What does this mean?
Depending upon what you agree to, the publisher may ask to be able to change what you have written, at any time, without your knowledge and permission, so work stands in your name but changed from what you have approved.
Why do they do this?
Publishers have a genuine concern now that much academic work is available on-line, including reference works (often with very many different authors contributing) such as encyclopaedia and specialist dictionaries. An article may be correct at the time of going to press, but may became out of date, factually incorrect, and even make statements that are now embarrassing inappropriate. (As a hypothetical case, consider you have written that “The current President of the United States is a modest, decent and honourable man who deeply cares about the welfare of all Americans and puts a high value on honesty”, but since you wrote this the Office has been passed on to someone widely felt not to fit that description). The publishers want to be able to make changes when indicated.
What do they claim?
Publishers like OUP claim that because of this reasonable concern they may need to change your text without being able to get your consent – after all, you have have changed your email address, gone senile, or even died.
What’s a publisher to do?
Would you not want them to correct your text?
Is a waiver of your moral rights necessary.
No.
You have been granted certain legal protections, and should not sign them away without good reason. There is not good reason here, as there are better options.
What else could the publisher do?
The publisher could try and contact you and suggest an update/change. If you agree, no problem. If you do not agree with their edits then they should not change your work. If they are adamant a change is needed, and you do not agree they can move to (a) or (b) below.
If they cannot contact you, they have other options:
a) they could remove the article from their website;
b) they could ask someone else to write a replacement article to substitute;
but, actually there is a much less problematic solution:
c) they could have someone else make the edit they want, but annotate the article with a footnote or similar to explain that this sentence/paragraph/table(/whatever) has been updated since the original publication. (Assuming they are not concerned about a libel or similar legal challenge, the original version could be archived for any interested reader to refer to). This would make it clear that you are the author of the original article, but that some small section is not your original text and is the work of another author or editor.
It is reasonable to ask any author to agree to this in a publication agreement, but contracts that require authors to simply waive their moral rights, and agree to any changes the publisher wishes to make, at any time, without even informing you, are just not reasonable.
If you agree, perhaps you will sign this petition: https://www.change.org/p/oxford-university-press-protect-scholarly-integrity
* Am I picking on Oxford University Press?
I am aware of at least four different prestigious publishers who have had such clauses in their contracts. When the issue has been raised with them, three of these have reconsidered, and acknowledged such clauses are unnecessary and inappropriate.
I had dialogue with OUP editorial staff, who refused to drop this clause in their publishing agreement. I also contacted the Delegacy that has oversight for the Press as a department of the University of Oxford. Despite bringing my concerns to the attention of the Vice Chancellor (acknowledged 13th April, 2018), this has not changed OUP policy.
While I was honoured to be asked to write an article for OUP, I rejected their contact because of this unacceptable clause. A less well established academic, desperate for publications for their c.v., might feel they are not in a position to take such a principled stand.
OUP should really align with other academic publishers (including an even longer established English University Press) and accept that they are asking for something unreasonable.
(See also: Protect the integrity of scholarly writing: an open letter to academic publishers)
