Author Copyright & Intellectual Property

Managing Your Copyright

Scholarly authors create works with the expectation that their research will be shared among peers and the general public. Traditionally, the means to share this content has included publication and classroom use. As new technology develops, authors have the opportunity to post works on personal webpages, in pre-print servers, and in institutional repositories. The author's right to use any one of these methods is governed by copyright law, and can be transferred at any time to another party.

Authors establish copyright for a work at the time of creation without the need for any formal action such as registration with the U.S. Copyright Office. Bundled together, copyright grants the author the following:

1. the right to reproduce the work,
2. the right to create derivative works from that work,
3. the right to distribute copies of the work,
4. the right to perform the work publicly,
5. and the right to display the work publicly. (http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf)

Included also is the author's right to give any or all of these rights away. Authors frequently assume that in order to publish a piece, all copyrights must be transferred to the publisher. Recent developments have led to changes in the publishing arena, and authors are becoming more aware of the ways in which they can distribute their works while still maintaining copyright.

Steps You Can Take to Protect Your Copyright

1. Read Author Agreements Carefully:

Author agreements often, but not always, transfer all rights from the author to the publisher. This means that the publisher may then distribute the work in any way he/she sees fit—including requiring high subscription fees for access and requiring the author to ask permission for teaching use of the piece. Many authors and publishers are changing this process by creating agreements that allow the author to retain certain rights for distribution and teaching while providing the publisher with the right to first formal publication.

2. Revise Author Agreements:

You do not have to give away all of your rights in perpetuity in exchange for publication of the piece. Instead, you can edit the language included in the publisher-provided agreement to grant only a non-exclusive license for the right to first publication.

An alternative to revising the agreement is to attachan addendum. SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) has developed an Author's Addendum which can be printed, filled in, and then stapled to an author agreement. This addendum allows authors to retain the rights to distribute their work online, deposit it in an institutional repository, and use the work for teaching. You can find this addendum at http://www.arl.org/sparc/author/addendum.html.

3. Choose Another Publisher:

If the publisher you have approached will not permit changes to the author agreement or accept the addendum, you may wish to look for another who will. The SHERPA Project maintains a selected list of publishers and their policies regarding copyright and open access repositories. You can view this list at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php?all=yes.