Transfer of Copyright in Connection with Electronic Archiving of Circular, Report of the Japanese Society of Systematic Zoology, Proceeding of the Japanese Society of Systematic Zoology, Proceedings of the Japanese Society of Systematic Zoology, Species Diversity, and TAXA
29 January 2010
The Japanese Society of Systematic Zoology (hereafter, our Society), beginning with the first issue in 1951, has published a journal (hereafter, our Journal) under various titles, viz., Circular, Report of the Japanese Society of Systematic Zoology, Proceeding of the Japanese Society of Systematic Zoology, Proceedings of the Japanese Society of Systematic Zoology, Species Diversity, and TAXA. Our Society expresses its gratitude for the support and cooperation of its members, who have enabled our Journal to flourish for 60 long years.
The National Institute of Informatics (NII) has chosen our Journal to be preserved in its Electronic Archives. This will include the full contents of every issue of every volume of our Journal. This means that every page of our Journal will be digitized and published on the website of the NII. In order to do this, it is necessary that our Society own the copyright to all the papers in our Journal, since everything will be published on the public server of the NII.
Therefore, in accordance with Copyright Law, it is necessary that all authors consent to transfer their copyright ownership to our Society.
In the September 30, 2008 revision of the Notice to Contributors (Species Diversity 13[2-3]) it was established that the copyright to all papers published in our Journal accrues to our Society. However, copyright ownership was never made clear for papers published before this date.
Consequently, we are requesting all authors who published in our Journal before September 30, 2008 to transfer their copyright ownership to our Society.
Authors who do not agree to this copyright transfer, or who have questions about the transfer, are requested to contact the Main Office of our Society in writing or by e-mail before December 31, 2010. Our Society assumes that all interested parties will see and read this message. However, in the event that the message is not seen until after the cutoff date, our Society is prepared to negotiate any problems on an individual basis. If by the cutoff date no particular protest or request for negotiation is received, our Society will assume that the interested parties have granted our request for transfer of copyright ownership, and will proceed with the publication of the entire contents of our Journal in the NII, as set out above.
The Japanese Society of Systematic Zoology