Copyright transfer

Publication chairs are also responsible for collecting signed copyright transfer forms.

Currently, authors of camera-ready papers are asked to electronically sign copyright transfer forms when they upload their papers. Therefore, what publication chairs must do is to check whether all paper submissions accompany with correct signatures. However, in a few cases, authors cannot sign forms. In these cases, you have to contact the authors directly to solve copyright issues.

Checking copyright signatures

You can obtain a complete list of copyright signatures via the ACLPUB tool in START. Go to the “ACLPUB” page, and “Generate” -> “Copyright Signatures” produces a text file containing all copyright signatures. Your task is to check whether each paper is correctly signed. You have to contact authors directly if you find any paper that lacks correct signatures.

Contact authors to solve copyright issues

Some authors cannot sign copyright transfer forms because of some regulations of an institute they belong to. In such cases, you have to contact authors directly to solve copyright issues. Typical cases are:

• Some institutes or companies do not allow to transfer all the rights to ACL. In such cases, at least ACL requires “license to publish” in any forms, including printed, online, CD-ROM, etc. Ask authors to prepare a licensing form including “license to publish” and to send you signed forms.
• US government work does not require copyright (see http://www.usa.gov/copyright.shtml). In this case, you do not have to do anything.