Well, it finally happened. I received a copyright notice from a publisher about reprints that are posted on my lab website. I actually thought most publishers were sympathetic to the realities of scientific communication and let that sort of thing slide, but apparently not. I'm particularly disappointed that it comes from the National Research Council (NRC) Press of Canada.

Sometimes people would ask what would happen if a publisher asked me to take down my papers. Often I would answer that I would comply, but that I would never have anything to do with that publisher again, either as an author or a reviewer. The fact that this is from the NRC Press is a shame, because I have published a lot with them and have reviewed a large number of manuscripts for several of their journals. I am also working on a special issue for one of them, but I may have to reconsider that now.

Anyway, here's the message. It's polite and not threatening at all, but it does make it clear that colleagues outside of Canada will have to ask me for each reprint that they want, which is a huge pain for them and for me.

Hi Ryan,

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Morris Rosenthal

It has been brought to my attention that the full PDF version of a number of articles published with NRC Research Press have been posted on your website as "Reprints" which can be freely accessed by anyone.

We do have a liberal authors' rights policy ( ) and author benefits ( ), which allow authors to post their submitted and accepted manuscript, but not the final PDF. We also provide authors a free copy of their final PDF, which can be passed around to colleagues for personal use, but they are not to be posted on a website other than the NRC research Press website ( We do not charge our authors page or submission charges, but as a not-for-profit publisher we need to generate revenue through subscriptions to run our operation.

Here is the link to your site where the "reprints" are in copyright violation: http://www.gregorylab.org/cv/. We would prefer that you link to the PDF on our site, which would be freely accessible to all Canadians (content pre-2011) and paid subscribers.

Here is a list of publications in question:

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U.S. Library of Congress

45. Andrews, C.B. and T.R. Gregory (2009). Genome size is inversely correlated with relative brain size in parrots and cockatoos. Genome 52: 261-267.
-Reprint-
39. Gregory, T.R. and J.D.S. Witt (2008). Population size and genome size in fishes: a closer look. Genome 51: 309-313.
-Reprint-
22. Gregory, T.R. (2003). Genome size estimates for two important freshwater molluscs, the zebra mussel (Dreissena polymorpha) and the schistosomiasis vector snail (Biomphalaria glabrata). Genome 46: 841-844.
-Reprint-
21. Gregory, T.R. and P.D.N. Hebert (2003). Genome size variation in lepidopteran insects. Canadian Journal of Zoology 81: 1399-1405.
-Reprint-
18. Prokopowich, C.D., T.R. Gregory, and T.J. Crease (2003). The correlation between rDNA copy number and genome size in eukaryotes. Genome46: 48-50.
-Reprint-
14. Gregory, T.R. (2002). Genome size and developmental parameters in the homeothermic vertebrates. Genome 45: 833-838.
-Reprint-
13. Gregory, T.R. (2002). Genome size of the northern walkingstick, Diapheromera femorata (Phasmida: Heteronemiidae).
Canadian Journal of Zoology 80: 1303-1305.
-Reprint-
11. Gregory, T.R. and P.D.N. Hebert (2002). Genome size estimates for some oligochaete annelids. Canadian Journal of Zoology 80: 1485-1489.
-Reprint-
7. Gregory, T.R. (2000). Nucleotypic effects without nuclei: genome size and erythrocyte size in mammals. Genome 43: 895-901.
-Reprint-
2. Gregory, T.R. and C.M. Wood (1999). Interactions between individual feeding behaviour, growth, and swimming performance in juvenile rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) fed different rations. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 56: 479-486.
-Reprint-
1. Gregory, T.R. and C.M. Wood (1998). Individual variation and interrelationships between swimming performance, growth rate, and feeding in juvenile rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences 55: 1583-1590.
-Reprint-

Thanks.

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