Gianfranco raised the subject of copyright and preprints on servers. We are running a server with preprints on statlab.uni-heidelberg.de for some time now. We tried to find out about the copyright situation, and have contacted several publishers. Here is a short so summary of the status: 1. If you have transferred the copyrights, most copyright agreements include rights referring to electronic media. So you must get the publisher's permission to put material in electronic form on a server. 2. Publishers generally accept the circulation of preprints in electronic form and the presentation on servers (like they accepted paper preprints). 3. After publications, publishers have different policies. Some publishers ask to remove material as soon as it has been published. Hence you will see that you that access to some files is blocked on our server. Most publishers accept that the material stays on the server. But we have been asked to include a copyright notice in the material itself together with a reference to the publication In my opinion, we should take a step further. We should not rest with the situation as we find it, but we should formulate the conditions we need for scientific communication. To get this process started, we use the letter included below. We ask every of our authors to send this letter to the editors or publishers when submitting a paper or transferring copyrights. G. Sawitzki >+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ To whom it may concern: As has been widely discussed, the advancement of electronic media has consequences for scientific publishing. The role of scientific journals has to be re-defined, and adequate models for copyright and related questions must be found. While the subject is still under discussion, we ask you for your cooperation to find a practical working basis. We are trying to replace our mailing of preprints or reprints by electronic distribution. For this purpose, we keep a server which is accessible by anonymous ftp or www. Making material avaible on this server might affect copyrights granted or transferred to you. A version of the article .. by .. submitted/to appear/published in .. is on our server. We ask you for your agreement to keep it there. If copyright has been transferred to you and you object to this practice, please inform us as soon as possible. We would then replace the article by a note stating that it has been removed on your request. For your information, here are some details on our current policy. We keep electronic preprints in two series. The "Beitraege" contain original material. The "Beitraege" undergo an internal review. Usually the "Beitraege" are intended for publication and at some stage the material will be submitted elsewhere. The "Reports" series contains papers of a more technical nature, or material first published elsewhere. Making contributions available on the server is a service we provide for the authors and their colleagues. The author keeps all rights and responsibility for the paper. In particular, the author may chose to replace it by a revised (or extended or shortened) version, anytime. Our list oft abstracts provides information about revisions, publication in journals etc., whenever feasible. It also contains a general note that the server is for personal, non-commercial use only and that copyright regulations apply. Anonymous ftp or www accress to published material is unrestricted. >+-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ == Guenther Sawitzki Fax + 62 21 - 56 53 31 Im Neuenheimer Feld 294, D 69120 Heidelberg Tel + 62 21 - 56 29 79