Scholarly Publishing

Understanding copyright fundamentals and your rights as an author are essential to making informed decisions about how your work is shared (even by you), accessed, and reused. 

In traditional publishing, authors are often asked to sign away their copyright to the publisher via a Copyright Transfer Agreement. This means:

• You no longer control how your work is distributed
• You may not be allowed to share your own manuscript publicly
• You may need to ask the publisher for permission to reuse your work (e.g., in teaching, future publications, etc.)

However, authors don't have to give up all rights. You can:

• Negotiate the publishing agreement (e.g., strike out or amend clauses)
• Use an Author Addendum, such as the SPARC Author Addendum or the Science Commons Copyright Addendum Engine to retain specific rights (e.g., the right to archive your article or use it in a dissertation)
• Choose to publish in venues where you keep copyright, especially Open Access (OA) journals

When publishing Open Access, you typically:

• Retain your copyright
• Apply a Creative Commons license that spells out how others may use your work
• Give the publisher a non-exclusive license to publish your work

Regardless of how you decide to publish, make sure you understand the key parts of your agreement with the publisher, and think about the many ways that you (and others) may want to share or reuse your work.