3.8 ADDENDUM CLAIMS
Consider two scenarios. In the first, you have written an article and published it in a well-knowninternational journal. You know this will make it accessible to large parts of the academic community because of the widespread network that this journal enjoys. At the same time, you also give up a modicum of agency that you would otherwise have been able to access over the research paper. Now, you cannot share this paper on file sharing websites online, nor can you upload it on open access academic databases. The gist of it is that you cannot increase readership beyond those who have access to the international journal you have chosen to publish your paper. Now consider a parallel universe in which you can use a legal tool (let’s call it X) to sign on the dotted line with this prospective international journal whileretaining your agency with respect to the paper at the same time. So, this would allow you to both publish in a reputed journal (a sine qua non of progress on the Academy) while expanding readership. The Addendum, our X, is just this tool that allows authors to benefit from the best of both worlds. The Author Addendum is a resource in partnership with the Creative Commons movement that is an exercise toretain the rights in the course of signing a deal with a publishing house. It is to ensure that publishing houses do not take away all the rights of copyright holders to publish the work, leaving the author with little control over his/her own text. This also allows the author to further develop the work if he/she wishes, in a manner that he/she chooses. For example, developing the work often happens through presentation at conferences which the author can now do with the addendum without the prior permission of any publisher. Further, this also allows the author to get proper attribution for the work done. Very often, publishing houses uses the material that they get from authors for their own purposes, such as marketing, without properly attributing the work to the author. Addendum claims prevent such a situation from emerging because it allows the author to retain those rights for herself. Stewardship of intellectual property becomes a more inclusive exercise with these bundles of rights that addendum claims bring along with it. A typical Author Addenda from SPARC is available23 for use byresearchers.