Discussion
When a journal closes down without being bought or transferred to someone else, what happens with the DOIs? Could institutional libraries that have archival (author's last copy) versions acquire the DOI and point there?
(I've done some searches for this and haven't found a good answer for the case when a journal ends and doesn't transfer ownership of the articles themselves. Does someone here perhaps know?)
@skyglowberlin if the DOI links are dead and the organization that registered them is no longer active, it would be best to contact the registry (Crossref or Datacite) to discuss re-pointing to an archival copy.
If the owner of the prefix is still active (e.g. a library), then the library will need to do the repointing.
cc @nyhan
@mpe @nyhan I wrote to the (former) journal editor to ask.
Thinking about old video games, I expect that there is probably a similar danger regarding unclarity about who has the rights when a journal shuts down. I don't think Crossref is likely to just let me tell them where to point it to (I'm only the author of the thing the DOI links to...)
@skyglowberlin @nyhan if the registrant is non-responsive, they might very well -- but it would be in dialogue with them and would have to demonstrate that the prefix owner was not active/responding etc.
(Disclosure: I used to work for Crossref)
@mpe Ah, ok, thanks for the tip 😃
I will see what happens with my mail to the former journal editor, then can reach out if that goes nowhere.
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