Sunday, August 03, 2008

What Authors Want: To Retain Copyright

Sally Morris (former Executive Director of the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers, ALPSP) quotes a major ALPSP study of more than 11,000 authors, published in 1999, What Authors Want, as finding that more than half of authors wanted to retain copyright, rather than relinquishing their copyright to publishers. One of the authors of the study, Alma Study, also refers to more authors wishing to retain than to relinquish copyright.

This is a study published in 1999 - more than two years before the initial Charter of Creative Commons, and long before today's Author's Rights Movement.

Sally's quotes can be found in her article, Authors and Copyright, Learned Publishing, Volume 13, Number 2, 1 April 2000 , pp. 75-76(2).

Sally Morris' article in Learned Publishing is free. The ALPSP study, however, is not. I wonder why?