Do publishers put their LTPs and CTAs online?

[dhimmel]

We've extracted links from SHERPA/RoMEO in romeo-publisher-links.tsv (file not tracked due to RoMEO's ND license). Not many journals have "License to Publish" (LTP) links. However, sometimes links to their publication agreements may have other names.

The relevance of RoMEO will depend on whether publisher's place their agreements online. I am not sure whether that's a common practice. The usual workflow is that authors access the agreement via an online system which requires login or perhaps via email. If this is the case, RoMEO may not be the best resource for LTP or CTA (copyright transfer agreement) links, since most may not be available on the plain web. And even if a publisher posts a LTP/CTA publicly, there is no gaurantee that is the agreement they're currently sending authors.

At the end of the day, we're interested in the agreements authors actually sign. @jpolka any thoughts?

[jpolka]

Found by looking through the .tsv & googling "exclusive license to publish":

List of exclusive licenses to publish

Journal	Exception for preprint?	Notes
Science	no?	No inclusion of "preprint" but allows immediate posting of accepted version to personal website or IR
Wiley: Work, Employment & Society	yes	"You may circulate or post on any repository or website the version of the article that you submitted to the journal (i.e. the version before peer-review) – ‘version 1’."
AIP	yes	"The Work has not been previously published and is not being considered for publication elsewhere in any form, except as a preprint on a noncommercial server such as arXiv, or in a thesis or dissertation. "
Taylor & Francis template for society journals	yes	Authors retain "The right to post and maintain at any time the Author’s Original Manuscript (AOM; your manuscript in its original and unrefereed form; a ‘preprint’).
Nature Publishing Group - OA	standard server license only?	"NPG acknowledges that an earlier version of the Contribution may have been submitted to a pre-print service (in accordance with that service’s standard licence terms)."

[dhimmel]

This is very interesting! Thanks for digging @jpolka.

I suspect the publishers with these agreements online are actually ahead of the curve. In other words, the fact that their agreements are online will be associated with their ELPs having been recently updated and well thought out.

I think this table is a good start on how different ELPs are addressing the potential preprint conflict. It's also evidence that it's an important issue... that ELPs should include these clauses and if not, we should consider what authors should do.

except as a preprint on a noncommercial server such as arXiv, or in a thesis or dissertation.

Interesting. What does noncommercial mean? Would it exclude PeerJ Preprints, which is not a non-profit?

in accordance with that service’s standard licence terms

This is another phrase which could make some preprints conflicting. Hopefully, we can find a solution (like mentioning the preprint, preprint server, and license in the cover letter) that is a workaround for all of these issues.