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Helen Gainford
Q: Why does Elsevier request transfer of copyright?
A: The research community needs certainty with respect to the validity of scientific papers, which is normally obtained through the editing and peer-review processes. The scientific record must be clear and unambiguous. Elsevier believes that, by obtaining exclusive distribution rights via copyright transfer, it will always be clear to researchers that when they access an Elsevier site to read a paper, they are reading the final version of the paper which has been edited, peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in an appropriate journal.
Publishers (for-profit and not-for-profit) are not obtaining greater publishing rights than are needed to support the business models of their journals. These business models ensure a dynamic environment of online scholarly journals with ubiquitous access for researchers at most institutions and digital tools for searching and browsing such content as well as linking from reference to reference. Further, STM publishers report that in their one-on-one discussions and communications with journal article authors, there is considerable satisfaction with the principles set out in standard publishing agreements concerning scholarly use and re-use by authors.
The scientific record must be clear and unambiguous.
Elsevier supports its journal publishing program primarily through subscriptions from institutions, advertising, “pay per view” income and subsidiary licensing. Therefore Elsevier wants to ensure that it has the exclusive right to distribute the articles published in its journals.
Copyright transfer eliminates any ambiguity or uncertainty about Elsevier's ability to distribute, sublicense and protect articles from unauthorized copying or alteration. The corollary of this is that Elsevier has the responsibility to police and prohibit plagiarism and to ensure widespread distribution, indexing and discovery.
In addition, most publishing systems today, including Elsevier’s and those of other agents with whom we have license agreements, such as the Copyright Clearance Center, are designed to handle rights at the journal, not the article, level. This makes handling any exceptions to the rights granted for an individual article extremely difficult.
Elsevier continually reviews its policy towards copyright transfer
and is sensitive to the needs of authors. Authors retain very
broad rights in Elsevier’s publishing agreement. For full details,
see Library Connect pamphlet #4, “Ways to Use Journal Articles
Published by Elsevier: A Practical Guide" (2006, available at
www.elsevier.com/libraryconnect). 
www.elsevier.com/copyright
www.elsevier.com/permissions
www.elsevier.com/librarians/rightsspot
