Suggested Changes to the Copyright Transfer Practice
Please
click here for the recent developments (September
2007 - February 2008) and here for
conclusions. -OP
This web-page was also translated into
German.
I want to present gere some of my thoughts and ideas on the current
relations between
mathematicians and journal publishers.
In this context, the main role of publishing companies is to
disseminate
mathematical knowledge. It is reasonable that they charge for their
services, or even make considerable profits, provided this does not
impair
the quality of their service.
However, we see some quite alarming trends in recent years. It seems
that
the high prices on many paper journals (which often exceed by far any
reasonable estimates of the publication costs) force academic
institutions to
opt for a temporary access to the online versions. For example, even
Carnegie Mellon University, one of the most prestigious technical
universities in the USA, stopped (in 2004) the paper subscription to Discrete Applied Mathematics, Discrete Mathematics, Journal of Combinatorial Theory (both
Series A and B), and many
other journals. Thus the access to these issues for the future
CMU researchers will completely depend on the publishers' providing the
on-line service at an acceptable price.
At the same time, a typical copyright transfer form that the
publishers currently require the
authors to sign gives the publishers a practically unrestricted control
over the contribution. (For example, do mathematicians have any, even
slightest, control over the journal prices now?) Essentially, the only
legally allowed ways for
disseminating the article without the publisher's permission are
limited
to the authors' personal web-pages and sharing (p)reprints with
colleagues. This relies on the authors' willingness and possibility to
do
so; thus in no way it can serve as the primary source of scientific
reference. (Especially that many publishers explicitly forbid putting
the final version on web.)
There are could be many reasons why an article cannot be obtained
from the author:
- the author is dead either physically or in the meaning used by
Erdös (that is, not doing research anymore);
- the author is not so impeccably organized as to have copies of
all papers readily available;
- the author is too busy to put preprints on-line or post
copies on request.
Actually, there is a good excuse/reason for the last type of behavior:
mathematician's direct duty is to prove beautiful theorems and write
them up while the mundane task of copying/posting/cataloging is just a
waste of time which could be spent more productively otherwise.
Hence, in 10-20 years private publishers will hold exclusive
rights to a large share of the mathematical research published today.
So,
if huge prices will happen to generate more revenue (even if fewer
copies
are sold), it is very likely that the publishers will take the
advantage of it. (This seems to happen already.) It is obvious who will
suffer most in this scenario.
In my opinion, a possible solution to this problem is to change the
terms
and conditions of the agreement between the authors and the
publishers. In a nutshell, I suggest to use the essentially the same
copyright form,
except for the following clause (which is also included into the text
of the article):
"After
[DATE] this article can be freely copied in any quantities, on
any media, and by any parties, also for the purposes of selling. The
content of the article, including this notice, must be passed unaltered
at all times."
This means that for a certain period of time (say, 10 years after
the publication date) the
Publisher holds the rights comparable with the current practice. This
is a
sufficiently long period to make institutions buy either the paper
version
or the electronic access. At the end of this period, the published
article
can be freely duplicated, on any media, in any quantities, by anybody,
provided its content is not altered in any way. Similarly to the GNU
General Public License, it is reasonable to allow anybody to
resell the article after the expiration date. The
clause stipulating this and stating the expiration date is to be
included also
into the content of the article and, therefore, must be always passed
unaltered.
The advantages of this proposal are that publishers can still make
profits
(and thus will be interested in maintaining their services) while
mathematicians, especially those from poorer institutions, will clearly
benefit. The examples of some successful journals, such that Annals of
Mathematics or Electronic Journal of Combinatorics, show that it is
possible to combine a high scientific level even with the immediate
free
full-text access. Also, the articles bearing such a clause are clearly
identifiable.
Suppose (as a wishful dreaming) that all major publishers announced
that all pre-2000 articles can be copied without any restriction. It is
likely that almost all important articles (e.g. the original
Szemerédi's regularity lemma) would become available for free
somewhere in the cyberspace fairly soon. This is so because the
existence of just one person who scans the article into a pdf-file and
puts the article's authors and title inside the link (so that google
can index it) would be enough here. A few enthusiasts should suffice
for starting a repository of published articles with expired copyright.
Probably, there would be enough volunteers to develop a free database,
not inferior to any of those currently offered by publishers. The
examples of e.g. Linux or the current refereeing process, both based on
people's willingness to contribute their effort and time to a good
cause, make me believe so.
Of course, there are drawbacks too. One of them is that, even if a
precedent is set, it is not clear if the other journals will endeavor
to
follow it. Also, the transition to new terms may disrupt some
established
routines. But, in my opinion, the mathematical community would overall
benefit from publishing contributions under new terms.
Obviously, we cannot expect private publishers to embrace this
initiative,
since it will eventually cut down their income. The most effective way
would be for a large group of mathematicians (e.g. AMS, ICM, etc) to
organize a referendum on these issues and, if the outcome is strongly
in the favor of changing the current system, to publicize widely the
results. (So that academic publishers would have to address this issue
somehow or risk losing their reputation of being supporters of
science.) Unfortunately, this does not look very likely to happen in
near
future.
My next step would probably be to ask the publishers to publish my
accepted papers under the proposed new terms. This
approach is extremely unlikely to succeed, but my modest aim at this
stage is to draw the attention of other mathematicians to this problem
(and to a possible solution). I'll try to record here any failures or
successes in this direction at this webpage.
I won't be collecting any signatures or maintaining a discussion
group, but I'll be very glad to hear any suggestions or comments on the
topic.
Thank you.
Oleg Pikhurko
New Developments
September 2007:
Recently, I learned of an earlier article by
John Ewing in the Notices of AMS who made similar suggestions (but much
better argumented and designed than mine). As of now, his ideas are
implemented by the American Mathematical Society. Namely, the authors
of journal articles have the option to dedicate their article to public
domain 28 years after publication: if they opt for this, then the
corresponding statement appears on the title page of the published
article. So far this scheme seems to work and not to cause any legal
problems for the publisher or the authors.
Therefore, I thought this to be a good time to raise the issue again
with the Elsevier (see here) and to see if
Springer, another major publisher, would be willing to implement these
changes (see here).
Also, the Australasian
Journal of Combinatorics seems to give a free on-line access to
papers that are 4 or more years old. Very nice of them!
October 2007:
Unfortunately, the experiment with the Springer was unsuccessful: I
was faced with the alternatives: either to sign the stardard copyright
transfer form or never ever publish with "Graphs & Combinatorics". (So
my decision was obvious.) It is unfotunate and rather surprising, since
I have always regarded the Springer as the friendliest one among the
major scientific publishers (because, for example, they have the cost
of many textbooks and monographs relatively low when compared with some
competitors). Yet, their reaction to my request was the most
negative so far. Although it formally came from the editors of the
journal, one can notice by looking at the correspondence that Mrs van
Straalen, Head of Rights, Rights and Permissions Department of Springer
chose not to reply to my emails or to voice any opinion on the matter
at all, thus implicitly endorsing the decision of the editor of "Graphs & Combinatorics".
February 2008:
As it turned out, my papers with "Graphs
& Combinatorics" did come out with the "Reverts to public domain 28 years from
publication" statement on the title page :-) I do not know
whether this was an overlook or intentional, but this happened.
Also, I discovered that NIH (the National Institute of Health)
will require from April 2008 that the scientists supported by its grant
are required to
provide a preprint of any article published to be included in a
free-access server (read more).
I was involved with a similar correspondence with Wiley (in
January 2005) about our paper "How
Complex are Random Graphs in First Order Logic?", where we tried
to do what Reinhard
Diestel suggests.
The publisher (Wiley) outright refused to published our paper unless we
sign
the unaltered copyright form, so we, the authors, had to agree.
(Unfortunately, I have not made any copies of emails from that
discussion.)
No answer from the Elsevier...
I do not think there is much I want to add here, so perhaps, I'll round
everything up with some conclusions.
Conclusions
- The current copyright transfer system does not work well.
- Most of the major journal publishers (Elsevier, Springer, Wiley)
are very reluctant to change their copyright policies.
- Also, not all scientists agree with the arguments put forward
here.
- There are viable solutions to this problem, the best one probably
being John Ewing's suggestion.
- There are some big organizations that are in favor of free
availability of scientific publications (AMS, NIH, SPARC).
So, what should be done? Personally, I'll probably keep asking to
include the clause "Reverts to
public domain 28 years from publication" in the accepted
articles but, if this request is declined, I would agree to the
publisher's terms. Things can change and one never knows.
Added in February 2013: And things do change. One response
of the Elsevier to the
Cost of Knowledge campaign, was to give open access to
articles in many of their journals 4 years from the
publication date. While this does not solve many problems
(such as the high cost of paper journals), this is a quite big
step forward that was not really followed by other major publishers.
In this respect, I find Elsevier quite progressive. This is
why I decided to finally publish my paper with them including
the copyright transfer. My requirement, to which the publisher
agreed, was to add the following note, making its open access status
independent of any future changes: "According to Elsevier's
open archive policy for papers published in the Journal of
Combinatorial Theory Series B, this paper
will be made open access 4 years after publication."
Perhaps, this is an option that all publishers should offer to
authors (without any page charges or other fees)?
Related Pages
Creative Commons
Reinhard
Diestel
Article
by
John Ewing
Thomas Hales
SPARC
Correspondence with the Elsevier
In September 2005, I made a request to the Elsevier to publish my paper
"Exact Computation of the Hypergraph Turan Function for
Expanded Complete 2-Graphs" (accepted by the Journal of Comb Theory
(B))
at the terms specified above.
Unfortunately, the publication of my paper was suspended for an
indefinite time. I thought this would be a good opportunity to provide
here the opinion of a major publisher on the raised matter. An outline
of the communication is given below.
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 2005 21:43:00 -0400
(EDT)
From: Oleg Pikhurko
Dear Dr Rockett,
I apologize for delays with reply
- I was very busy (the semester at CMU
started last week).
I would like to make some
amendments to the Copyright Transfer. My reasons
are described in
http://www.math.cmu.edu/~pikhurko/Copyright.html
Namely, I ask you to include the
following text on the title page of my
article as well as in the
copyright form:
After January 1, 2016 this
article can be freely copied in any quantities,
on any media, and by any parties,
also for the purposes of selling. The
content of the article, including
this notice, must be passed unaltered at
all times.
Please do not publish my
contribution until some agreement have been
reached.
May I thank you in advance.
Yours truly,
Oleg Pikhurko
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2005 17:07:40
+0100
From: "Boer, Remco de(ELS)"
Dear Dr. Pikhurko,
My name is Remco de Boer and I am
the Elsevier publishing editor for the
Journal of Combinatorial Theory
Series B. As such, your request with regard
to amending our Transfer of
Copyright agreement has been forwarded to me.
Unfortunately, it will not be
possible to change the copyright transfer
terms for your article as you
suggest. However, you are allowed to post the
accepted author version of your
article on your personal webpage or
institutional repository where it
will be freely accessible.
Kind regards,
Remco de Boer
Publishing Editor
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 18 Sep 2005 23:36:37
-0400 (EDT)
From: Oleg Pikhurko
Dear Dr Boer,
Thank you for your letter. I
agree that the Elsevier is very generous in
allowing the authors to put the
final published versions on their
homepages. However, as the
author, I wish to ensure that my contribution
is freely available to the future
mathematical community, even after I
cease to maintain my homepage.
I believe that the proposed extra
clause would not require any changes in
the current publishing routines.
The Elsevier would be able to distribute
the contribution as usual as well
as to have the full freedom in the
pricing policies. The extra
clause, after it takes effect in 2016, does
not restrict any of these in any
way. (Although the number of downloads
from the Publisher's website
might drop down after 2016.) The only
limitation is that, after 2016,
the Elsevier would not be able to initiate
any lawsuit against third parties
for copying the distribution.
If you would be willing to
provide the reasons as to why the proposed
addition is unacceptable, this
would be very helpful. (I admit that it is
quite possible that I have
overlooked some important point.)
In the meantime, please do not
publish my contribution until we have
reached an agreement.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Oleg Pikhurko
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Sep 2005 14:03:36
+0100
From: "Boer, Remco de(ELS)"
Dear Dr. Pikhurko,
I understand your viewpoint very
clearly. However, I am afraid that we have
a company-wide copyright policy
which applies to all articles which appear
in Elsevier journals. It is
therefore not possible to change this policy for
a single article as you suggest.
Furthermore, this would create a precedent
that could have implications for
other articles in the future and this is
not supported by my company.
I sincerely hope that you
understand this and are still willing to publish
your article with us. In any case
there is nothing that I can do for you in
this respect. If this is a reason
for you to withdraw your article for
publication then please inform me
and I will take care of it.
Kind regards,
Remco de Boer
Publishing Editor
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date:
Tue, 20 Sep 2005 15:02:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: Oleg Pikhurko
Dear Editors,
Unfortunately, the Publisher and me could not agree on the terms of the
publication of my paper YJCTB 2354. My reasons for asking for an
alteration to the standard copyright transfer form are stated here:
http://www.math.cmu.edu/~pikhurko/Copyright.html
I do not wish to withdraw the article nor resubmit it to another
journal.
I would rather regard it as accepted by JCTB, with publication suspended
for an indefinite period. I intend to put it on arxiv.org and will be
very
happy to publish it in JCTB later if the Publisher agrees to the
suggested
changes and you still believe that the contribution is of interest to
the
JCTB readership.
I just wanted to inform you about this development and ask you to spend
as
little time as possible (or none at all) on this matter. In my opinion,
JCTB is a very good journal and you do an excellent job as editors. So I
would really hate it if you wasted your time on this incident.
Especially,
that it is not clear if the proposed copyright alteration could work in
practice and would be supported by other mathematicians. I feel strongly
about this case, that's why I do not mind investing my time and efforts
into it. But I do not wish to force anybody into any discussions and
arguments, without their willing so.
At this stage, my objective is to make other mathematicians and the
publishers aware of this issue and a possible solution. There isn't much
use in making the point more than once, so I expect to submit more
papers
to JCTB and publish them on the standard copyright terms.
I thank you for your excellent work.
Yours Sincerely,
Oleg Pikhurko
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2005 10:36:05
+0100
From: "Boer, Remco de(ELS)"
Dear Dr. Pikhurko,
I have discussed this matter with
the editors and they feel that this is a
matter between the author and the
publisher. In view of this, I have looked
at the options one last time but
I am sorry to inform you that our policy
cannot be changed. It will not be
possible to suspend the publication of
your article for an indefinite
time as you suggest. Currently there are two
options:
(1) We will proceed with the
publication of your article on the explicit
understanding that you will sign
and return an unaltered copy of the
standard Transfer of Copyright
form. If you do not want to sign this form
and your article is not
withdrawn, we will publish the article with an
Elsevier copyright line.
(2) You can withdraw your article
from publication.
Please let me know at your
earliest convenience which of these two options
you prefer.
Kind regards,
Remco de Boer
Publishing Editor
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 3 Oct 2005 13:24:43
-0400 (EDT)
From: Oleg Pikhurko
Dear Dr Boer,
I am afraid that the option (1)
is unacceptable to me and I explictly
forbid the Elsevier to publish my
contribution unless all my requests, as
specified in my email to Dr
Rockett of September 6, 2005, are met.
At the same time, I would not
make any formal request to withdraw my
article. If you do not agree with
the phrase "publication suspended for an
indefinite period", this is
understandable. In this case, I would suggest
the formulation "not published
because of a disagreement over the
copyright" or a similar one.
Thank you. Hearing from you.
Yours sincerely,
Oleg Pikhukro
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 13:45:29
+0100
From: "Boer, Remco de R (ELS-AMS)"
Dear Dr. Pikhurko,
I am afraid this leaves only one
alternative, which is to suspend the
publication of your article
indefinitely. Please note that this means that
unless you are willing to
officially withdraw your paper it cannot be
published elsewhere
Kind regards,
Remco
Another attempt with Elsevier
Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2007 14:23:44
-0400 (EDT)
From: Oleg Pikhurko
To: Elserier Journals Customer Service Department
<usjcs@elsevier.com>,
Elsevier Author Support
<authorsupport@elsevier.ie>, "Boer, Remco de(ELS)"
Subject: copyright transfer form
To Whom it May Concern,
My article "Exact Computation of the Hypergraph Turan Function for
Expanded Complete 2-Graphs" (accepted by the Journal of Combinatorial
Theory B in 2005) was not published because of the disagreement over the
copyright. This article has not been submitted nor published in any
other
peer-review journal. Please refer to
http://www.math.cmu.edu/~pikhurko/Copyright.html
for details. Roughly speaking, my requirement was that, after 10 years
from publication, everybody should be legally allowed to make unaltered
copies of the article, on any media and in any quantities.
Currently, the American Mathematical Society gives the authors of
journal publications the option of reverting their articles to public
domain 28 years after publication. Please see:
http://www.ams.org/notices/200403/commentary.pdf
http://www.ams.org/authors/ctp.pdf
I am willing to publish my article "Exact Computation of the Hypergraph
Turan Function for Expanded Complete 2-Graphs" in Elsevier's Journal of
Combinatorial Theory B under terms similar to those currently offered by
the AMS.
Please reconsider your decision and let me know if this is possible.
May I thank you in advance.
Yours Sincerely,
Oleg Pikhurko
PS I reserve the right to place the contents of this email (as well as
any
subsequent correspondence on this topic) on my WWW homepage.
NB:
No reply from the Elsevier as of now (Feb'12, 2008)
Correspondence with Springer
This correspondence relates to my paper "Characterization of Product
Anti-Magic
Graphs of Large Order" accepted by Graphs and Combinatorics.
Date: Wed, 8 Aug 2007 13:47:21 -0400
(EDT)
From: Oleg Pikhurko
To: Ananthakrishnan R.
Cc: Kanako Honma
Subject: Re: G&C 23-5 proof, 748
Dear Publisher,
Thank you for your email and the prompt typesetting work. I have looked
through the page proofs and there a few corrections, all mentioned at
the
end of this email.
Regarding the copyright transfer, I explicitly request that this article
reverts to public domain 28 years from publication. The corresponding
remark (i.e. "Reverts to public domain 28 years from publication") must
appear on the title page of the published work. Please find the
correspondingly modified CTF attached.
Such option is currently offered by the American Mathematical Society,
see
http://www.ams.org/authors/ctp.pdf and
http://www.ams.org/notices/200403/commentary.pdf
My reasons for this request can be found here:
http://www.math.cmu.edu/~pikhurko/Copyright.html
Please feel free to email me if you have any questions. I thank you in
advance.
Yours Sincerely,
Oleg Pikhurko
Corrections to the page proofs:
...
Date: Tue, 28 Aug 2007 11:14:08 +0900
From: Kanako Honma
Subject: RE: G&C 23-5 proof, 748
Dear Prof. Oleg Pikhurko,
Thank you for your e-mail.
You can choose one of the following possiblities.
1. To sign our original Copyright Transfer Statement.
2. Otherwise, your article can not be published in a Springer
publication.
Yours sincerely,
Kanako Honma (Ms.)
---
Springer Japan KK
Editorial Department
Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2007 14:05:58 -0400 (EDT)
From: Oleg Pikhurko
To: Kanako Honma
Subject: RE: G&C 23-5 proof, 748
Dear Ms Honma,
Could you please elaborate on the reasons why I cannot both publish my
manuscript in a Springer journal and have it dedicated to public domain
28
years after publication?
I thank you in advance.
Yours Sincerely,
Oleg Pikhurko
Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2007 11:11:23 +0900
From: Kanako Honma
To: Oleg Pikhurko
Subject: RE: G&C 23-5 proof, 748
Dear Prof. Pikhurko,
It is our rule to submit the Copyright Transfer
Statement to publish article in the journal.
The statement cannot be changed by each author.
Yours sincerely,
Kanako Honma (Ms.)
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2007 17:44:17 +0900
From: Kanako Honma
To: Oleg Pikhurko
Subject: RE: G&C 23-5 proof, 748
Dear Prof. Pikhurko,
To publish your article in "Graphs and Combinatorics",
please send me signed (original) Copyright Transfer Statement by
September
20, 2007.
Yours sincerely,
Kanako Honma (Ms.)
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 20:06:06 -0400 (EDT)
From: Oleg Pikhurko
To: Kanako Honma
Subject: RE: G&C 23-5 proof, 748
Dear Ms Honma,
I am afraid that I do not agree to publish the paper unless my
requirements (or some fairly equivalent alternatives) are accepted by
the
Springer. Also, I do not intend to submit the manuscript for a
publication
to any other journal.
Therefore, I choose to wait with publication, however long it may take,
until Springer reconsiders its copyright policies for journals.
Sorry for the trouble I may have caused. I hope for your understanding.
Yours Sincerely,
Oleg Pikhurko
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 20:07:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: Oleg Pikhurko
To: GC M.Kano
Cc: Kanako Honma
Subject: GC 2146
Dear Professor Kano,
Unfortunately, the Publisher and I could not agree on the terms of the
publication of my paper GC 2146. My reasons for asking for an alteration
to the standard copyright transfer form are stated here:
http://www.math.cmu.edu/~pikhurko/Copyright.html
Please also see an article by John Ewing in the Notices of AMS whose
suggestions are now implemented by the AMS:
http://www.ams.org/notices/200403/commentary.pdf
I do not intend to submit this manuscript for a publication to any other
journal but rather wait until Sprinder reconsiders its copyright
policies
for journals, however long it may take.
I will continue to submit and publish other papers with Springer (in
particular in Graphs and Combinatorics) and to sign the standard
copyright
transfer form, except for the above paper. The purpose of my action is
to
draw attention to this issue and, hopefully, to facilitate a better
solution than the existing practice.
This email is just to keep you informed of this developement. I do not
ask
you to take any action or express your opinion on this matter.
Let me take an opportunity and thank you once again for the great work
you
are doing as the Managing Editor of Graphs and Combinatorics.
Yours Sincerely,
Oleg Pikhurko
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 10:32:42 +0900
From: GC M.Kano
To: Oleg Pikhurko
Cc: Kanako Honma
Subject: Re: GC 2146
Dear Professor Pikhurko, (CC Ms. Honma)
As you know, copyright is very important for the publisher,
and it is well-known that when someone publishs
his paper in some journal,
he shoud send the copyrigh form of the publisher
to the pubisher, otherwise, the pape is not publisehd.
We of course follow the decision of the publisher.
Also if you don't agree to the decision of the publisher,
we dot not want to deal with your papers any more
because it is just a meaningless work for us.
We do not touch the problem on
copyright because it is out of editor's works.
Sincerely yours,
Mikio Kano
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2007 11:29:15 -0400 (EDT)
From: Oleg Pikhurko
To: GC M.Kano
Cc: Kanako Honma
Subject: Re: GC 2146
Dear Professor Kano,
"Graphs and Combinatorics" is an excellent journal. I absolutely do not
want to risk the privilege of publishing in G&C.
Probably, I was not very clear in my last email. So let me stress again
that, independently of the outcome of the copyright issue with the
current
paper, I will be signing the unaltered Publisher's copyright form for
all
my other submissions accepted by G&C.
Also, I completely agree with you that the copyright terms are out of
editor's work (and should be handled by the copyright office of the
Publisher). I thought that Ms Honma belonged to that office or that she
would forward my request there.
Therefore, all that I kindly ask of you is to refrain from taking any
actions on my manuscript GC 2146 until I get in touch with the
corresponding office at Springer and some decision is reached. This
should
keep the editorial office uninvolved and undistracted from their primary
duties.
I can only imagine how much efforts and time it takes to edit a major
mathematical journal and that an unexpected hindrance in publishing
even a
single article can be very discouraging for the editors. I sincerely
apologize for this.
Yours Truly,
Oleg Pikhurko
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 23:52:33 -0400 (EDT)
From: Oleg Pikhurko
To: permissions.dordrecht@springer.com
Subject: journal copyright terms
Dear Mrs van Straalen,
My manuscript "Characterization of Product Anti-Magic Graphs of Large
Order" was accepted by the journal "Graphs and Combinatorics" published
by
the Springer.
The American Mathematical Society gives the authors of journal
publications the option to dedicate their contribution to public domain
28
years after its publication date with the corresponding statement
appearing on the front page of the published article. Please see
http://www.ams.org/notices/200403/commentary.pdf
http://www.ams.org/authors/ctp.pdf and
I wish to publish the above manuscript with the Springer under
compatible
terms (that is, providing for free copying after a certain date). My
reasons for this can be found on the following web-page (which also
contains my previous correspondence regarding this request):
http://www.math.cmu.edu/~pikhurko/Copyright.html
Could you please look at the matter and let me know if this is possible?
If this question is outside your scope of work, can you please forward
it
to the appropriate department?
May I thank you in adnvance.
Yours Sincerely,
Oleg Pikhurko
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 11:28:09 +0900
From: GC M.Kano
Subject: Graphs and Combinatorics
Dear Professor Pikhurko,
The problem about the copy right is mainly
between you and Springer, the publisher.
However I also have a list and pay attention
each paper until it is finished.
If you do not send us the copy right form
by October 26, 2007,
I will remove the following your paper GC2146 from the list, which meas
this paper will not be published.
Also we will stop the process of refereeing
of the following your another paper GC2412
because we don't want to do meaningless work.
We could not understand why you submited your papers
to our journal though you don't agree with the copyright of the
publisher.
Could you tell us your answer or send the copy right form.
File NO: GC2146
Title: Characterization of Product Anti-Magic Graphs of Large Order
File NO: GC2412 Title: Perfect Matchings and $K_4^3$-Tilings in
Hypergraphs of Large Codegree
Sincerely yours,
Mikio Kano Managing editor of Graphs and Combinatorics
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 22:44:46 -0400 (EDT)
From: Oleg Pikhurko
To: permissions.dordrecht@springer.com
Subject: Re: journal copyright terms
To Whom it May Concern,
I'm afraid I have not received any reply to my email of September 25
(see
below). Can you please tell me whether it has been received and when I
may
expect an answer?
Thank you.
Yours Sincerely,
Oleg Pikhurko
On Tue, 25 Sep 2007, Oleg Pikhurko wrote:
<... contents of my previuos email >
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:09:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Oleg Pikhurko <pikhurko@andrew.cmu.edu>
To: GC M.Kano <gc@mx.ibaraki.ac.jp>
Cc: kanako.honma@springer.jp
Subject: Re: Graphs and Combinatorics
Dear Professor Kano,
I emailed a request to Springer more than three weeks ago but I have not
received any answer yet. (This is why you did not hear from me all this
time.)
I noted your deadline of October 26 and will let you know my decition by
this date.
Yours Sincerely,
Oleg Pikhurko
Date: Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:58:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: Oleg Pikhurko <pikhurko@andrew.cmu.edu>
To: GC M.Kano
Cc: Kanako Honma
Subject: Re: Graphs and Combinatorics
Dear Professor Kano,
I'm afraid I have not heard from the publisher yet. So I decided to sign
the unaltered Springer copyright form. I have faxed it to the fax number
mentioned on the form. So please proceed with publishing this paper (and
continuing the review process for my other papers).
Thank you.
Yours Sincerely,
Oleg Pikhurko