I'm a grad student getting close to submitting my first journal article (which will be single-authored). My understanding is that it's standard practice for authors to transfer the copyright of their paper to the journal in which it is published. I want my article to be published in a journal, but I don't want to transfer the copyright — I want the article to be in the public domain. How will editors to behave towards such a request? Also, when should I bring up the topic: when I submit the article, or after it's accepted and I'm asked to sign a copyright transfer?
Some grants apparently have a stipulation that articles written as part of the grant research must be released into the public domain (e.g. grants funded by the US government). In this case, authors presumably sign a consent to publish, instead of a copyright transfer. Hence, there's at least some precedent for what I want to do, though I want my article in the public domain purely because of my personal views on the ethics of copyright.
I couldn't find too much information about this topic by googling. Oleg Pikhurko has a page discussing his attempt to have his articles revert to the public domain after a period of years, as opposed to instantly. It didn't work out particularly well in his case.
I'm not sure how much I'm willing to have my ethical ideals damage my career (e.g. by having publications delayed and/or being banned from submitting to journals).
Best Answer
Most journals in math allow you to publish a version of the paper which was previously posted to the arxiv.org. They ask you often to take the copyright for the published version which just slightly differs from the arxiv version. So there is not much difference between having it public or having a slightly different version public. Some journals, on the other hand are free anyway and forever in their public versions, e.g. Theory and application of categories. If you choose a journal carefully you solve most of your concern. Some publishers are notorious of being nasty, expensive, proprietory, nonresponsive to author needs etc. You do not want to publish in expensive envelopes of crap, like Elsevier's Chaos, solitons and fractals used to be.