On 28/01/2015, at 3:10 PM, Jim Perkins wrote:

Britt,

You're absolutely correct. The document that the author signs usually
states that s/he is transferring full copyright of the manuscript and all
accompanying materials - including artwork - to the journal. As I said
earlier, many authors just sign these agreements blindly and never
consider whether it violates the agreement they have with the illustrator.

If the illustrator granted limited rights to the author, then the author
has no legal authority to transfer copyright of the artwork to the
journal. But if the illustrator takes any action against the journal, the
author gets caught in the middle and isn't happy. You are correct that
this inevitably leads to bad feelings between the author and illustrator.
So, yes, the illustrator must be very proactive in checking the submission
requirements of the journal and making sure the journal will accept a
limited license rather than full transfer of the copyright.

There has been a lot of discussion about this on the AMI listserv. Much of
the discussion focuses on large clinics, medical schools, and teaching
hospitals that have their own in-house illustration departments (places
like Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, etc.). The staff illustrators would
create artwork that belonged to the clinic or med school, but then the
scientists and physicians would sign away the rights to that artwork every
time they submitted a paper to a journal. Since the journal now owned the
copyright, the illustration department would have to pay a licensing fee
back to the journal to use their own artwork! Some of the these clinics
and medical schools finally realized that they were giving up a valuable
commodity by signing away the rights to their work. So they forbid their
faculty and researchers from signing these sorts of agreements. Initially
this created a standoff, but the publishers eventually backed down because
they depend on the researchers at these big institutions for so much of
their content. This has opened the doors for independent illustrators to
also negotiate with the publishers to retain their copyright.

Jim



On 1/27/15 10:53 AM, "Britt Griswold" <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

I assume an artist has to be very proactive about reminding the author to

send the author/artist

agreement to the Journal when less than full copyright is in the work

agreement? Do Journals just

assume if the author signs over full copyright, that means the art as

well.  It just seems like

policing this stuff would be nearly impossible; and that trying to clean

up the mess afterward is a

good way to never work for those authors again.

On 1/26/15 11:05 PM, Jim Perkins wrote:

This is good advice. In fact, many journals these days demand full

copyright to all submissions,

including the author's text and all accompanying artwork. As Nicolle

said, the authors gladly sign

these agreements since they see it as a necessary condition for getting

their work published. They

may not realize (or care) that it violates the terms of their agreement

with the artist.

Many illustrators have had success negotiating with the journals to

accept something less than a

full transfer of copyright. At a minimum, however, most journals are

going to insist on one-tiome

print rights PLUS a limited use license in perpetuity. That's because

most journals now offer an

online, archived edition and they want to be able to use the artwork in

the online version long

after the printed version is published. This would prevent you form

putting any kind of time limit

on the usage.

I think your best bet is to grant them:

1. One-time print rights for a single printed edition of the journal.

2. Non-exclusive rights to use the artwork in an online or electronic

archive version, /but only in

the context of the original printed article/. In other words, they can

only use the artwork as it

appears in that one printed article. This prevents them from

repurposing the art for other articles

or adding it to their clip-art collection.

Since you're granting them a non-exclusive, limited license, you keep

the copyright and can use the

artwork for anything else you want, but it satisfies the needs of the

journal at the same time.

Jim

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