Cameron - this is interesting. Of course publishers do already republish articles. They sometimes collect different articles on a topic together and republish them in book form. They clearly label the individual articles as to their origin, though the book itself is not always marketed as a re-hash of existing material. Librarians hate these books as we can end up paying again for something we already have in journal form!

So there is nothing inherently wrong in republishing provided, as Lars says, it is clearly labelled and you are not trying to create a new article out of an old article.

Teaching institutions in effect do the same thing, often having to spend a great deal of time on clearing the rights to re-use content. See HERON for more info http://heronweb.ingenta.com/heron/

Some journals also republish old, classic articles with a commentary. Again the intent is to re-expose the old article to new audience not to practise any kind of deception.

Maybe we need a Journal of Duplicate Papers?