Dear Elie and everyone,
At 17:03 +0200 10/05/05, Elie Najm wrote:
Dear Otto (all),
In order to handle the publication problem with springer (and the special case of IWQoS'05), I need a copy of the IFIP - Springer agreement. More specifically, I wish to check if the agreement covers the price at which the "IFIP-LNCS" series should be sold (publicly or to conference organisers). If the agreement does not stipulate any constraint then it may be the case that, "legally", Springer is free to sell the "IFIP-LNCS" publications at a higher price.
There is nothing in the agreement that forbids Springer to sell at any price, but the problem is that Springer tells the conference organizers that the 30% increase is due to IFIP royalties, which is obviously not the case, and gives bad reputation to IFIP.
In MHO, the agreement should have covered the pricing issue. It should have stipulated that "IFIP-LNCS" should be sold at the same price as regular LNCS series.
I am afraid such agreement cannot go that far.
Anyhow, I think that we should discourage Springer from presenting two price lists to IFIP/TC6 event organisers. What means do we have to enforce this rule ?
Here is the email I sent to A. Hofmann on Monday on this issue:
Date: Mon, 9 May 2005 12:26:45 +0200 To: "Hofmann, Alfred, Springer DE" Alfred.Hofmann@springer-sbm.com From: Guy Leduc Guy.Leduc@ulg.ac.be Subject: Re: AW: AW: IFIP publications in LNCS Cc: gutsmied@fmi.uni-passau.de, iwqos@fmi.uni-passau.de, "Guenther, Christine, Springer DE" Christine.Guenther@springer-sbm.com, Otto Spaniol spaniol@informatik.rwth-aachen.de, Elie Najm Elie.Najm@enst.fr
Dear Alfred,
Let me come back to this issue of IWQoS 2005 and its publication in the IFIP LNCS series.
I was attending an IFIP TC6 meeting this week-end and was able to discuss this issue with the committee.
First of all, let me briefly quote article 31e of the "AGREEMENT BETWEEN IFIP AND SPRINGER SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA" I read:
"Royalties to IFIP for volumes published in IFIP LNCS will be paid as a one-time advance publication fee upon publication of the respective volume, and will be 10% of the estimated total sales of the volume, excluding bulk sales."
If our understanding is correct, this means that there is NO royalties due to IFIP on the bulk sales, and only 10% of royalties on (the estimated) post conference sales!
The current position of Springer LNCS on this issue, which consists of advertizing two price lists (one for standard LNCS and another one for IFIP LNCS) and of justifying the 30% difference as a result of royalties due to IFIP thus violates this agreement and should not be continued.
Therefore IFIP TC6 is firstly asking a clarification on this issue.
Then, regarding IWQoS 2005 in particular, we recommend to apply article 31e of this agreement, namely that the conference proceedings should be published in IFIP LNCS, but at the standard LNCS price.
Unless our understanding of the agreement is incorrect, we also recommend that this should be the case for all IFIP TC6 conferences published in IFIP LNCS from now on.
Finally, I copy this email to Prof. Otto Spaniol, chairman of IFIP TC6, and to Prof. Elie Najm who has taken over the chairmanship of IFIP WG6.1 since the 1st of January 2005. For this reason, Elie will now be in charge of this issue for IWQoS 2005.
Best regards, Guy Former IFIP WG6.1 chairman
Best regards,
Elie
PS: I enjoyed the Toronto meeting and look forward to the next one
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