The Society's mission to disseminate knowledge in the atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic sciences is best served by promoting wide access to American Meteorological Society (AMS) publications while ensuring that this dissemination preserves the integrity of the originally published works. The copyright to the materials published in the journals, monographs, and other publications of the Society, which is transferred from the authors to the AMS at the time of publication, allows the AMS to act as the steward for the intellectual property contained in the published works. It also allows the AMS to protect the value of the materials so that they can be used to generate revenue for the Society, which is then used to support the peer-review publication process so crucial to the scholarly scientific endeavor.
The widespread growth of information dissemination through the World Wide Web has led to a changing view of how scientific information will be delivered in the future. The AMS is looking forward to the day when it can make most or all of its publications available in the form of electronic documents as part of a digital library. An AMS digital library will not, however, be a reality before the end of this decade, and we are taking this opportunity to state our policies on copyright in light of the current situation in which electronic dissemination through the posting of materials on servers is common.
These policies were based on the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Interim Copyright Policy, and substantial portions of the text follow this 1995 ACM document. The AMS commends the ACM for the excellent work it has done in the development of its policies and gratefully acknowledges its permission to use portions of the ACM text. Readers of the AMS policies here are encouraged to access the several ACM documents related to copyright issues available at the following universal resource locator (URL): http://acm.org.
The policies presented here seek to develop an openness on the part of the AMS to new practices engendered by digital media. They also clarify the conditions under which the AMS grants prior permission for copying or distribution and the conditions under which the AMS requires prior permission and/or fees. A glossary of the principal terms is included at the end of this document.
The recipient of an AMS copyrighted work is not free to copy it and pass it on without permission from the AMS. This concept has been the foundation of copyright and continues to be the basic assumption in the policies presented here. In addition, these policies repeatedly refer to three other basic assumptions.
This statement of policies will be reviewed from time to time and amended or revised as necessary based on the experiences gained under its use. The AMS Publications Commission and Information Systems Committee initiated the development of these policies and will continue to play a key role in helping to formulate AMS policies on copyright. All such policies, however, must be approved by the AMS Council. This document supersedes all previous statements on AMS copyright policies.
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The AMS copyright notice must be displayed on the first page or initial screen of a display of all works copyrighted by the AMS, whether those works are published in print or in digital medium. It is acceptable to place the string "© Copyright 199x American Meteorological Society" as a hypertext link to the full copyright notice.
AMS Copyright Notice
© Copyright 199x American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law (17 USC, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Society's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form on servers, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statements, requires written permission or license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policies, available from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or amspubs@ametsoc.org.
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Authors must assign copyright to the AMS as a condition of publishing the work with the AMS. This requirement may be waived for some materials. Copyright transfer takes place when the work is accepted for publication by an AMS editor or appropriate AMS staff member.
Immediately after copyright transfer, authors must incorporate the AMS copyright notice (see section 1) into any copy of the work made available to others. The AMS will maintain the accepted version as the definitive (reference) version of the published work, as amended through editorial processing for publication. In the event that the AMS makes the published work available electronically, authors who maintain personal collections should implant a link to the definitive version maintained by the AMS and should distribute only links pointing to the AMS definitive version.
An author who uses the material of another author, such as a graphical image, text, etc., is expected to obtain written permission to include the material with the understanding that the entire work may be distributed in any and all media.
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A link is a string that, when interpreted by an appropriate program, will access an object elsewhere in a network and fetch a copy of it to the local machine. Examples are hypertext links, URLs (universal resource locators on the World Wide Web), and document handles. Under this definition, standard bibliographic citations can be links when processed by an appropriate intelligent agent.
The AMS treats links as citations. The AMS encourages the widespread distribution of links to the definitive versions of AMS copyrighted works and does not require that authors obtain prior permission to include such links in their new works. Execution of a link to view a work is considered permissible under these policies, but storing or redistributing a copy created by the execution of a link requires explicit permission from the AMS. In addition, servers may not place copies of AMS works in their databases for distribution by links without the permission of the AMS.
Although the AMS treats links as citations, the AMS considers it to be infringement if a series of links forms a pattern equivalent to the table of contents to an AMS publication. To avoid misunderstandings, individuals should consult with the AMS before duplicating a substantial portion of an AMS work with links.
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The posting of draft manuscripts on Internet servers provides an opportunity for increased communication among researchers, and the AMS does not want to inhibit this recently available avenue of scientific exchange. At the present time, and as long as certain requirements are met, the AMS treats such postings as informal publication and will not reject a manuscript that has been posted in this way on the basis of prior publication (see section 7).
Prior to publication by the AMS, authors may allow their works to be placed on a non-AMS server, such as one of the so-called e-print servers. The AMS strongly recommends that the authors choosing to do this require the server to carry a notice similar to the one shown below.
Sample of server notice
The documents contained in these directories are included by the contributing authors as a means to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work on a noncommercial basis. Copyright and all rights therein are maintained by the authors or by other copyright holders, notwithstanding that they have offered their works here electronically. It is understood that all persons copying this information will adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. These works may not be reposted without explicit permission of the copyright holder.
For works that were posted on an e-print server prior to the transfer of copyright to the AMS, permission is granted under these policies for the work to remain on those servers until publication by the AMS provided the notice discussed in section 8 is included at the time the copyright is transferred (when the work is accepted for publication, as stated in section 2). The work must be removed at the time of publication—no later than the first of the month after the month of issue of the AMS publication containing the work. In addition, e-print servers not displaying a server notice similar to the one shown above are required to remove the copy of the work at the time of copyright transfer to the AMS.
E-print servers may replace the removed copy, at the discretion of the server operators, with the abstract from the work and/or a summary of the work containing no more than 10% of the original material, along with a full citation to the AMS publication.
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As part of a copyright transfer to the AMS, the original copyright holder (author or author's employer) retains
Organizations that originally owned copyright may distribute copies of works to their employees within the organization.
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An author who submits a work for consideration by an AMS editor should include the following notice on any personal copies posted on servers:
This work has been submitted for publication. Copyright may be transferred without further notice, and this version may no longer be accessible.
The AMS and other publishers have a policy that authors submit a work for consideration for publication by only one editor at a time. Authors must notify editors if a work is identical or substantially the same as another work submitted for publication.
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The AMS maintains a policy of not republishing works, whether copyrighted by the AMS or by others, except under limited conditions where an editor determines there is significant benefit in republication.
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Non-AMS servers are not permitted to place copies of AMS copyrighted works without permission. In the event that permission is granted, the AMS subscribes to the general scientific convention that published works not be altered without review and approval by an editor. The AMS is responsible for maintaining the definitive copy of any AMS publication. Any copy maintained and distributed (with permission) by a non-AMS server after the copyright has been transferred to the AMS must contain the following notice:
Permission to place a copy of this work on this server has been provided by the AMS. The AMS does not guarantee that the copy provided here is an accurate copy of the published work.
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Persons who have permission under these policies to make copies may elect to digitize a print copy and distribute the digitized copy. Persons using error-prone digitizing processes such as optical character recognition (OCR) may choose to use a notice similar to the following in place of the notice required under section 8:
Permission to convert printed copy to character text by OCR has been given by the AMS. Since OCR may introduce errors, the AMS does not guarantee this is an accurate copy of the published work.
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In most cases of conference proceedings, the collection as a whole is copyrighted by the AMS, while the authors may hold copyright to the individual components of the collection.
No collection in which the AMS is the sole or joint copyright holder may be posted for open distribution without prior permission from the AMS. Notice of permission must accompany the AMS copyright notice.
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All AMS journals and monograph publications are registered with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923. The CCC provides an easy and effective means of obtaining permission for most uses of AMS copyrighted materials for a modest fee, and the AMS encourages its use for permission processing whenever possible. Requests for permission can also be directed to the Director of Publications at AMS Headquarters, 45 Beacon Street, Boston, MA 02108-3693; fax: 617-742-8718; e-mail: amspubs@ametsoc.org.
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The AMS has a long-standing policy that the copyright transfer statement grants the AMS the right to publish the work in whole or in part in any and all media. The AMS has always interpreted this policy to include, in addition to conventional print media, digital media, digitized copies of previous print versions, and digital transmission of files containing the copyrighted works. The AMS hereby reaffirms this interpretation.
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Some of the terms used in these policies have specific meanings. The meanings intended herein are recorded as follows.
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