Who Owns What I Say?

medical scientistsas authors and speakers are being forced into a dilemma: the oral presentation of new information at a scientific meeting may jeopardize consideration of that information for publication in a peer-reviewed journal. This problem came home after I had presented a paper at the 10th International Congress of Eye Research held in Stresa, Italy, on September 21, 1993. Having been invited to present an original scientific work previously by one of the session chairmen, I had not given either oral or written consent to the video or audio recording of the presentation. Copyright ownership was not assigned to either the journal,Experimental Eye Research, which had previously published the meeting abstracts, or the organizers of the congress, the International Society for Eye Research.1To my surprise, within 1 month, I received a galley proof by way of facsimile transmission from one of the ophthalmologic tabloids that contained