Hi, Anneliese. The publication agreements are subject to the pre-existing conditions (including pre-existing licenses) established by the UC policy. So whatever rights the author purports to transfer to the publisher, or whatever other compliance terms to which they agree, are subject to the prior license taken by the university. What's more, the publisher's know this because Katie / CDL documented outreach to the publishers advising them of the pre-existing license. What I often tell scholars who sign agreements with such terms is that they may wish, if they want, to remind the publisher of the institutional license before signing. That way, if the publisher would like them to waive the pre-existing license, they can (if they want to). This really only comes up in more limited instances in which the author both intends to sign such a restrictive agreement
and intends to deposit the AAM in eScholarship prior to the publisher embargo.
It may be easier to talk by phone, and I'm happy to.
Best,
Rachael