copyright transfer in research

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Understanding copyright for journal authors

What is copyright.

Copyright is a type of intellectual property right which protects original creative works, including literary works such as academic articles. Copyright laws grant a copyright owner certain exclusive rights for a designated term of copyright protection (today, typically life of the author plus 70 years). This includes the exclusive right to reproduce, create adaptations of, and distribute a work. 

As an author publishing with Taylor & Francis, you can choose how to allocate your rights. We offer two different publishing models – open access and subscription (non-open access) – which each take a different approach to allocation of those rights. During the Taylor & Francis publishing process authors are issued  an “author publishing agreement,” through which we obtain the rights needed to publish and disseminate your article based on the model chosen.  

It is important to understand differing copyright options as an author, especially with the growth of  open access publishing . Here, we describe how copyright licensing or transfer applies for Taylor & Francis open access and subscription (non-open access) publications.

Find out more about article publishing charges, embargo, and license information with the  Open Access Cost Finder.

Copyright in open access articles

For an open access article , in return for payment of an article publishing charge (APC) by the author or their funder, Taylor & Francis will make the article available on an open access basis, allowing broad access and re-use according to the author’s licensing selections. Taylor & Francis will also validate, produce, disseminate, and act as steward in the long-term curation of the article, including managing any updates or changes to it, so that readers can have confidence that the version they are viewing is the latest version of record. In the open access model, publishing activities are funded by the APC, paid prior to publication, and Taylor & Francis therefore can be more flexible on the rights it needs.

When publishing open access, the author (or copyright owner, if different) signs an author publishing agreement in which they retain copyright and give Taylor & Francis the right to publish the Version of Record of the article. The agreement incorporates the Creative Commons license of the author’s choice, which will dictate what others can do with the article once it has been published.  Find out  which licenses your chosen journal offers  by using the open access cost finder.

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Attribution (CC BY)

Others can distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the article, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation.

Attribution-Non-commercial (CC BY-NC)

Others can remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, and although their new works must also credit you for the original creation and be non-commercial, they don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution-Non-commercial-No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND)

Others can download the work and share it as long as they credit you for the original creation, but they can’t change it in any way or use it commercially.

Please visit the  Creative Commons website  for more details about licenses.

Copyright in subscription articles

For an article published in a subscription journal, as with an open access article, Taylor & Francis will validate, produce, disseminate, and act as steward in the long-term curation of the article.  Taylor & Francis may also handle re-use requests.  In the subscription model, the author receives these services for free, and instead Taylor & Francis recoups its investment in the above services by selling access to the content.  In order to achieve this, the owner of the applicable journal (e.g. a learned society or Taylor & Francis) typically requires a transfer or “assignment” of the copyright in the article.

As is the case for open access publishing, when publishing in a subscription journal, the author (or copyright owner of the article, if different) signs an author publishing agreement.  The agreement incorporates the necessary transfer of copyright.

After assigning copyright, you will still retain the right to:

Be credited as the author of the article.

Own and exercise any trademark or patent rights held by you and addressed in the article.

Make printed copies of the article to use for a lecture or class that you are leading on a non-commercial basis.

Share the article using your  free eprints with friends, colleagues and influential people you would like to read the work.

Include the article in your thesis or dissertation.

Present the article at a meeting or conference and distribute printed copies of the article on a non-commercial basis.

Post the  Author’s Original Manuscript (AOM) / Accepted Manuscript (AM)  on a departmental, personal website or institutional repositories depending on embargo period. To find the embargo period for any Taylor & Francis journal, please use the  Open Access Options Finder .

For more information about manuscript versions and how you can use them, please see our  guide to sharing your work .

If you choose to publish the article in a Taylor & Francis or Routledge journal, there are many ways you can share different versions of your work with colleagues and peers. Use  our article sharing guide  to understand manuscript versions and how you can use them.

Taylor & Francis commitments for all articles

Whether publishing on an open access or subscription basis, Taylor & Francis will:

Validate, produce and disseminate the article in accordance with the publication model chosen;

Act as steward in the long-term curation of the article, including managing any updates or changes to the article, and managing any ethics disputes that arise, so that readers can have confidence that the version they are viewing is the latest and most complete version of record

Additionally, where appropriate to do so, Taylor & Francis may also take action to protect the article after publication where it has been infringed or plagiarized, or is the subject of fraudulent activity, or gives rise to other legal concerns.

Other forms of license

Other forms of copyright license may be available depending on your specific circumstances – for example, US government employees may receive a license which acknowledges some limits around rights in the event the article was created in the scope of their employment for the US government. Also, there may be some circumstances where Taylor & Francis will accept a non-exclusive license, in lieu of an assignment, for publication in a subscription journal.  These options can be addressed during the production process, where applicable.

Understanding article reuse

Each license offers different reuse rights. The table below gives a quick overview of how others can use your work, based on the relevant license.

[tableshd id=”12045″]

Frequently asked questions

What if i do not own the copyright in the article i have written.

We seek to accommodate authors who are employees of governments, international organizations, or commercial corporations. Such entities will generally own copyright in works created as part of an employee’s employment.

Such entities will normally issue and grant Taylor & Francis a “non-exclusive” license to publish. In such situations, the publishing agreement stipulates that in doing so, such entities recognize Taylor & Francis as the sole licensee for the publication of the final, definitive, and citable Version of Scholarly Record.

If you work for World Health Organization (WHO) or the World Bank they will retain copyright in the article and authors negotiate whether exclusive or nonexclusive rights are given.

If you are employed by the UK Government, your work is covered by Crown Copyright . Crown Copyright applies to material which is produced by Crown employees during their work. Therefore, most material originated by ministers and civil servants is protected by Crown Copyright.

If you are employed by the US Government, your work is covered by the US Government Copyright .

If I have used any third-party material, whether previously published or not, do I need to acknowledge this?

Yes. You will need to obtain written permission in advance from any third-party owners of copyright for the use in print and electronic formats of any of their text, illustrations, graphics, or other material, in your article and in our journals. The same applies to any other rights held by third parties such as trademarks, design rights, database rights and rights relating to private information and confidentiality.

Taylor & Francis is a signatory of, and respects, the spirit of the STM Permissions Guidelines regarding the free sharing and dissemination of scholarly information. As such, we participate in the reciprocal free exchange of material. It is also important to ensure you acknowledge the source of the original content.

For further details please read our guide to using third party material in your article .

Useful links

Creative Commons licenses .

UK Intellectual Property Office’s What is copyright? guide.

US Government’s Copyright Office guide to copyright .

World Intellectual Property Organization guide to copyright .

• SpringerLink shop

Copyright and licensing

Creative commons with open access.

All open access articles, books and book chapters published under the Springer imprint are published under Creative Commons licenses. Publishing an article or book/book chapter with open access leaves the copyright with the author. 

Authors can choose to publish their book or book chapter open access under our Springer imprints. Authors can also choose to publish their article open access in Springer’s Open Choice program, which includes Springer's hybrid and transformative journals or one of our SpringerOpen journals . 

Open access articles and book/book chapters* are published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) , which allows users to read, copy, distribute and make derivative works from the material, as long as the author of the original work is cited.

* Several other Creative Commons licenses are available on request for open access book and book chapters. 

For more information on open access policies related to publishing with Springer Nature, including CC licensing and retrospective open access; see our journals and books open access publication policies on SpringerNature.com.

Licence to Publish and Copyright Transfer for subscription articles and non-open access books/book chapters

Book and book chapters

Springer Nature authors retain copyright of their book or chapter manuscript. The majority of book and chapter authors will sign a broad exclusive Licence to Publish for their contributions. Further information on copyright and licensing can be found in our publishing policies . 

Journal articles

The vast majority of Springer Nature journals do not require authors to transfer the copyright of their published contributions. Authors grant Springer Nature, or the licensee an exclusive Licence to Publish, in return for which they can reuse their papers in their future printer work without first requiring permission from the publisher, or society of the journal. 

A small number of Springer's society-owned journals continue to transfer copyright. By signing the Copyright Transfer Statement authors still retain substantial rights, such as self-archiving.

For information on our self-archiving policies, please follow the links below:

• Self-archiving policies for journals
• Self-archiving policies for book and book chapters

US government or Crown employees:

If you are employed by the US government or a Crown body (including Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada and Australia), you will be able to indicate this in the rights process following acceptance and an appropriate non-exclusive licence will be sent to you to submit. 

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Licensing and copyright

Springer Nature’s guide to licensing, copyright and author rights for journal articles.

Whether you're publishing your article via the open access (OA) or subscription model, this guide will help you understand the differences in licensing, the rights you retain as an author, and the permissions needed for various uses of your work.

Publishing licence options

Open access (OA) articles in Springer Nature journals are published under Creative Commons licences. These provide an industry-standard framework to support re-use of OA material. Details of the OA licences offered to authors can be found on our individual journal websites, and more information about Creative Commons licence terms is available in this guide and on the Creative Commons website .

Articles published under the subscription publishing model in Springer Nature journals have different terms of use.

Read on to learn more about how others can make use of your work, and your rights as an author.

What are the differences between publishing licences?

All licences used by Springer Nature require that all authors and the article version is credited when anyone reuses your publication. This means you are always recognised for your work. Depending on the licence you choose for your publication, the rights that others have to share and reuse your work will vary.

The two main OA licences used by Springer Nature journals are:

• CC BY-NC-ND - Creative Commons Attribution, Non Commercial, No Derivatives : The article can be shared for non-commercial purposes as long as the authors are credited. Permission is needed for commercial re-use or sharing adapted and derivative versions.
• CC BY - Creative Commons Attribution : The article may be shared and adapted for any purpose, including commercially, so long as the authors are credited.

Rights for reuse

All Creative Commons licences require the licence to be referenced when sharing the content in whole or in part.

For more information about permissions and commercial reuse visit the Springer Nature Rights and Permissions guide.

Meeting funder and institutional OA licence requirements

Authors are advised to check their funder's open access (OA) requirements, to ensure compliance. Certain funders require grantees to publish with a specific OA licence. Check our list of funders with Creative Commons licence requirements , and learn more about funder OA requirements .

Where the costs of OA publication are covered by an institutional or funder OA agreement , the OA licence options available to authors may vary according to the agreement terms.

Journal authors employed by the US Government or the Crown (the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada or Australia), who require a non-standard licensing agreement, are able to select this upon acceptance, prior to publication.

If you, or part of your author group, are employees of the European Commission, or an intergovernmental organisation (such as the United Nations, IMF or World Bank) you may need an alternative agreement. All Springer Nature journals with an OA option offer intergovernmental organisation (IGO) versions of Creative Commons licences on request, where required by the author’s employer. Please contact our customer service team by email or chat.

Authors who have questions about changing the OA licence of their article post-publication should contact the Open Research Support Team at [email protected] with your Article’s title, DOI and journal name.

Copyright and author rights

We believe that authors should retain copyright of their research manuscripts and receive clear credit for their work.

Springer Nature is committed to protecting our authors against infringement of intellectual property, while also considering the sensitivities and concerns of the research community. We achieve this by proactively identifying, monitoring and taking action against potential instances of infringement to ensure that any threats to the intellectual property rights of our authors are targeted, disrupted and, where possible, closed down.

OA articles

Authors retain copyright of all OA articles published by Springer Nature. Authors publishing their articles OA will sign an OA licence to publish agreement (LTP), and grant non-exclusive rights to Springer Nature where a CC BY licence is selected, or exclusive commercial and derivative rights where CC BY-NC-ND is chosen.

Subscription articles

The vast majority of Springer Nature journals do not require authors to transfer the copyright of their published contributions. In most cases, authors will sign a subscription licence agreement, granting Springer Nature an exclusive licence to publish the article.

For a small number of content types (for example review articles in selected journals) and for a small number of Springer Nature's society-owned journals, authors transfer copyright. By signing the Copyright Transfer Statement authors still retain substantial rights, such as self-archiving.

Author rights

In addition to the use cases described in the Rights for reuse table above, authors also have additional rights to make use of their article. Unless otherwise specified, these use cases refer to reuse of the published version of record, in whole or in part.

For more information on the rights granted to authors and Springer Nature, you can view sample copies of the licence to publish (LTP) agreements currently in use for research articles published in Springer Nature-owned journals:

• Springer Nature OA licence agreement - CC BY 4.0
• Springer Nature OA licence agreement - CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
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• v.5(20); 2017 Oct

Should copyright be transferred before a manuscript is accepted?

Academic journals that undergo a process of academic scrutiny often pass a stage of peer review and subsequent editorial approval. In a process that can take weeks or months (in some cases, even years), an author aims to satisfy the requirements of peer reviewer and editorial scrutiny that would merit publication of their work. It is customary to, in traditional, non-open access journals, to then sign over copyright to the publisher, upon which the publisher then issues a proof, and the manuscript is then published. Even though it is obvious that an author would not submit to a journal with the objective of having it rejected, the issue of the timing of copyright transfer is one which does not appear to have been discussed in the literature, possibly because the order of transfer, i.e., after acceptance of a paper for publication, seems naturally logical. With the modernization of online submission systems, the transfer of copyright tends to occur online, after acceptance. However, on occasion, some journals request the transfer of copyright before peer review and editorial processing occurs, i.e., upon the act of submission. This letter examines three cases of Springer Nature plant science journals that demand the transfer of copyright to the journal’s society upon submission, in direct violation of their instructions for authors. Authors have no right to challenge this discrepancy, nor can they complete submission in accordance with the instructions for authors because they are forced to submit copyright upon submission. Not only does transfer of copyright at such an early stage of the publishing process constitute a waste of authors’ time—a precious commodity in a cut-throat field of science—in the three cases indicated in this paper, they may constitute a violation of authors’ rights. The ethics of this request by the journals and publisher need to be debated.

Publishing is a celebratory act, or at least it should be. Authors, most of all, should celebrate because they have passed a “stress test”, subjected their intellect to supposed experts in their field who have assessed the manuscript meticulously, and had it approved for publication by the editors. Editors and journals should—when the task has been conducted correctly—be proud to publish work that has been critically screened and examined. In traditional journals, the journey—which can sometimes be long, sometimes excessively so ( 1 ), and take as much as several months, or more rarely years—the authors then agree to sign over, or transfer, their copyright, to the journal’s academic society, or publisher. The act of transferring copyright is an act of trust, in which authors place faith in the publisher to represent that intellectual content, and disseminate it as widely as possible. Thus, it seems logical that copyright should only be transferred after a manuscript has been peer reviewed, and accepted for publication by the editors. The processes of manuscript submission, copyright transfer and proof corrections are increasingly being automated, with all these operations taking place through online submission systems, or online. In the case of online transfer of copyright, an author cannot sign the document, but has to check a box that indicates that they agree—on their behalf, or if for a group, on behalf of their co-authors—to the conditions specified in the clauses that appear online in the document on their screen at that time. Despite this natural and logical sequence of events, on occasion, one may find journals or publishers that require copyright to be transferred before a paper has been accepted, during the stage of submission. From experience, most plant science journals published by Springer Nature follow this pattern of copyright transfer. This in fact was formally confirmed via email on April 1, 2017 by Carol Bischoff, the Springer Senior Editor in New York, stating clearly: “ Please note it is the policy and practice of this journal and other of our journals published under the Springer Science + Business imprint that a transfer - of - copyright form is executed online by the contact author after manuscript acceptance . Of course , if the author chooses to publish open - access (via Springer Open Choice) , then no transfer of copyright is needed or requested . Again , this choice is made by the author online after acceptance ”.

The request to transfer copyright prior to editorial processing, peer review and acceptance is odd for the reason indicated above, namely that it only makes logical sense to transfer copyright once a manuscript has been accepted for publication, following peer review, and after the authors agree to that contract. Thus having to transfer copyright during the submission process and prior to peer review and editorial handling—independent of whether the paper is accepted or rejected—is not only a waste of authors’ time, resources and effort, because it usually involves having to print the document, sign it, scan it, and submit it, it simply makes no logical sense to sign over copyright at this stage of the publishing process. Even if the authorship disagrees with the lack of logic of this pre-acceptance transfer of copyright to the journal, society, or publisher, if such a clause is clearly specified in the instructions for authors (IFA), then authors have no choice but to comply, or to submit elsewhere if they feel that they disagree with the logic or the ethics of this request. The Journal of Immunology , published by The American Association of Immunologists, Inc., clearly specified this clause in their IFA, stating “ All manuscripts are considered to be the property of AAI from the time of submission . Should AAI not publish the paper , AAI releases its rights therein at the time the manuscript is returned to the corresponding author ” ( 2 ). Knowing this information in the IFA, authors can then make a decision whether to submit to the journal, or not.

Three Springer Nature plant science journals clearly state in their IFAs, in the section entitled “After acceptance”, the following text related to copyright transfer: “Copyright transfer Authors will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to the Society” . In other words, when authors read the IFA of these three journals, they know that only when their manuscript has passed peer review, editorial processing, and acceptance, will the copyright of their paper be transferred to the society in question. The three journals are: Journal of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology , published by the National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology, India, and with an IF 2015 =1.352 ( 3 ) ( Figure 1 ), Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants , published by the Prof. H. S. Srivastava Foundation for Science and Society, India, and with an IF 2015 =1.351 ( 5 ) ( Figure 2 ), and Agricultural Research , published by The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), India, with no impact factor ( 6 ) ( Figure 3 ). Even though this is clearly stated in the IFA of these three journals ( Figures 1-3 ​ 1-3 ​ ), ), when an author attempts to submit a manuscript to any of these three journals, in the final step of the submission process, i.e., where the submitting author is requested to upload files, in all three cases, the uploading of a signed copyright transfer form or agreement is mandatory/obligatory ( Figures 1-3 ​ 1-3 ​ ), ), i.e., an author cannot—and is unable to—complete the submission process without submitting a signed copyright transfer. In other words, even before editorial processing and peer review, and naturally long before a manuscript is destined for acceptance, authors are forced to transfer copyright, in direct violation of these journals’ IFA, and of Springer Nature’s copyright transfer policy, indicated in writing to me by Carol Bischoff.

The Journal of Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology (A), published by the National Research Centre on Plant Biotechnology, India, with an IF 2015 =1.352 ( JPBB 2016), and hosted by Springer Nature, makes a request for authors to transfer copyright upon submission, a mandatory (obligatory) requirement (B), even though it contravenes the instructions for authors, that clearly state that copyright is transferred after acceptance (C). Salient aspects indicated by bold red arrows. Screen-shot used under the fair-use agreement for post-publication peer review ( 4 ).

Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants (A), published by the Prof. H. S. Srivastava Foundation for Science and Society, India, with an IF 2015 =1.351 ( PMBP 2016), and hosted by Springer Nature, makes a request for authors to transfer copyright upon submission, a mandatory (obligatory) requirement (B), even though it contravenes the instructions for authors, that clearly state that copyright is transferred after acceptance (C). Salient aspects indicated by bold red arrows. Screen-shot used under the fair-use agreement for post-publication peer review ( 4 ).

Agricultural Research (A), published by The National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), India, with no impact factor ( AR 2016), and hosted by Springer Nature, makes a request for authors to transfer copyright upon submission, a mandatory (obligatory) requirement (B), even though it contravenes the instructions for authors, that clearly state that copyright is transferred after acceptance (C). Salient aspects indicated by bold red arrows. Screen-shot used under the fair-use agreement for post-publication peer review ( 4 ).

These three journals are therefore violating authors’ rights. An author that respects the clauses of an IFA when submitting a manuscript, but is then required to break those written clauses, may be considered to be unethical by the scientific community for violating the publisher’s publishing requirements. Yet, in this case, not only are authors’ rights violated, so too is the journal society and publisher acting in bad faith by advertising one clause in the IFA (namely a voluntary transfer of copyright only after acceptance), but then forcing authors to transfer copyright before they have the privilege of having their manuscripts peer reviewed. The issue of authors’ rights is not discussed in great detail in the scientific literature—most likely because such civil liberties does not suit the economic model of intellectual exploitation of scientists currently in place by most mainstream oligopoly for-profit publishers, like Springer Nature ( 7 ), that require the transfer of copyright for commercial exploitation. Yet, as science becomes more militarized ( 8 ), primarily at the expense of authors’ rights ( 9 ), it is the responsibility of authors and scientists to officially record such cases so that the scientific community may begin to appreciate how such rights have become infringed upon, and frayed, in small steps and measures. Most importantly, will Springer Nature force these three Springer Nature journals to conform to its copyright transfer policies, or to flaunt separate rules of engagement?

Acknowledgements

Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.

Completing the copyright form for your article

For most IOP Publishing (IOP) hybrid journals (journals which offer the choice of publishing on a subscription basis or on a gold open access basis), we generally require you to transfer (assign) the copyright in your subscription article to IOP (or to the relevant publishing partner) before acceptance of the article. For articles published on a gold open access basis, we generally only require that IOP is granted a non-exclusive licence. Please ensure you check the terms of the specific journal’s copyright form, as this does vary in some journals.

For most IOP fully gold open access journals (journals which only offer publication on a gold open access basis), we generally require you to grant a non-exclusive licence of the copyright in your article to IOP (or the relevant publishing partner) before acceptance of the article. However, please ensure you check the terms of the specific journal’s copyright form, as this does vary in some journals.

Following submission of your revised article, we will ask you to submit electronically the journal’s copyright form via the Author Centre. IOP cannot formally accept your article for publication until your fully signed copyright form has been received , along with any required permissions (see next section).

The transfer or licence of copyright in your article only takes effect from the date on which the article is accepted for publication. If you withdraw your article, or if it is not accepted, the transfer or licence does not take effect.

The main features of the copyright form are that:

Authors transfer the worldwide copyright in the subscription-only article to IOP (or our publishing partner) in all formats and media (note that this applies to most of our hybrid journals).

Authors grant a worldwide non-exclusive licence of the copyright in the gold open access article to IOP (or our publishing partner) in all formats and media.

Authors assert their moral right to be identified as the authors of the article.

For subscription-only articles, IOP grants back to authors certain rights; for details please see our Author Rights Policy.

IOP currently publishes gold open access articles under the CC-BY licence.

Provision is made for situations where copyright is not owned by the authors, for example an author’s employer, US government employees or Crown copyright.

Provision is made for multi-author articles, in that only one author should submit the copyright form but they should have obtained the verbal agreement of all the other authors (and any other copyright owner) beforehand to its terms and submission of the form.

As well as addressing matters of copyright, the copyright forms contain assertions that:

• The article is the original work of the authors.
• The article has not been published previously and is not currently under consideration for another journal.
• Each of the authors has made a material contribution to the article.
• All authors have received the final version of the article and have agreed to it being submitted.
• The content of the paper is not defamatory, fabricated or an infringement of third-party rights.
• All required permissions have been obtained in writing.

For more details on the copyright form and how to complete it, please email [email protected] .

Related information:

Copyright and research

There are many ways that copyright can affect the publication or release of research work. Copyright affects the release of theses or dissertations, when third-party material is included within the research work. Copyright must also be considered when researchers are working on author agreements with publishers. Understanding how copyright intersects with research is a valuable skill throughout the different stages of a research plan.

☜ Use the side menu to navigate through the copyright and research topics.

There are many things to consider before choosing a publishing outlet. It is important to understand publishing agreements, licensing options and how to retain rights as an author. Resources across the University can assist in making informed publishing decisions.

Publishing checklist

Consider the following before deciding on a publishing agreement:

• Authorship management
• Third-party copyright clearance
• Finding the right publication outlet
• Funder requirements ( Open Access mandates )
• Sharing associated research outputs where possible (e.g data, code or software)
• Indigenous cultural and intellectual property rights
• Commercial and IP considerations
• The terms of the publishing agreement
• Licensing options to encourage reuse

Understanding publishing agreements

Authors and publishers will generally have a publishing agreement (sometimes referred to as an author or licence agreement) in place when a work is published. As a copyright holder, it is important to be aware of available publishing agreements, look for publishing agreements that best suit current and future dissemination needs. This will help when deciding on a suitable publisher and will help when needing to negotiate further publishing needs.

Publishing agreements vary between publishers and will also vary depending on the type of work, e.g:  book, book chapter, journal article, conference paper, etc. Publishing agreements will also be impacted by the type of licensing scheme attached to the publication, such as, Open Access or behind a paywall.

A publishing agreement will generally cover information such as:

• When the work will be published
• The format the work will be published in (print or online or both)
• How many print copies will be made available
• If the author is entitled to any royalties, how they will be shared between the author and publisher, payment terms, etc.

The agreement will also address how copyright in the work will be managed.

Within a publishing agreement, authors are generally asked to warrant:

• Ownership of the work and therefore ownership of the copyright.
• Disclosure of the inclusion of any third-party copyright material (i.e. created by someone else), alongside clarification regarding permissions from the third-party for the material to be included in the completed work.
• That the work contains no libelous or unlawful statements, does not infringe upon the rights or privacy of others and does not contain material or instructions that might cause harm or injury.

There are a number of ways in which copyright can be dealt with under an agreement, some of which are more common in certain disciplines or types of published works than others. Speak with peers, colleagues, faculty research offices and or  faculty or school librarian for further information on discipline-specific publishing agreements.

Negotiating author rights

Authors and creators of works are entitled to negotiate certain rights with a publisher. These may include:

• The right to deposit an Open Access copy of the work in an institutional repository (with or without an embargo period)
• Exemptions for teaching and educational purposes
• The right to reuse figures, images, and tables from the work in future publications.

Funder requirements can be useful when negotiating changes in publishing agreements. For example, if a published work is funded by a research grant associated with the Australian Research Council (ARC) or the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) then an open access copy of the work must be made available to read within 12 months of publication. Flag this requirement as early as possible so as to ensure that the publishing agreement aligns with funder policies.

Remember that negotiations with publishers may not go as planned. However, there is nothing to lose by having these conversations. For an insight into the negotiation of author rights, read more in this interview with Associate Professor Alysia Blackham from Melbourne Law School.

The Authors Alliance website offers many resources on publication contracts and rights reversion, including the Open Access ebook “ Understanding and negotiating book publication contracts ”.

Author assigns copyright to the publisher (copyright transfer agreement)

Generally, when publishing a book, the author grants the publisher a licence. Whereas it is common for authors to assign copyright in journal articles to the journal or publisher. This is a copyright transfer agreement, where the author grants all of their rights as author and copyright holder to the publisher. This means that the author may need to seek permission from the publisher to do any of the following:

• Deposit an Open Access version into an institutional repository.
• Make the published work available on their own website.
• Share the published work with colleagues.
• Teach the published work.

Sometimes, the publisher may grant the author limited rights, such as those described above. Assignment of copyright is generally permanent unless the agreement indicates otherwise.

If the author assigns copyright to the publisher; the publisher can also, at their discretion, enter into agreements with other parties to use the work. For example, the publisher could licence the work, so that it can be included in a subscription database or arrange for a translation to be made.

See example contract

Author grants publisher an exclusive licence

The author gives the publisher certain rights over their material for the term of the agreement. These rights are granted only to this publisher and might include the right to publish, communicate, and distribute the published work online and to sublicence. How long the agreement lasts can vary, some agreements can be indefinite or perpetual. If the licence includes the right to sublicence, the publisher can grant the rights given to them to a third party, for example to allow another publisher to publish the work in another territory. While the agreement is in place, the author cannot grant the same rights to anyone else.

Author grants publisher a non-exclusive licence

Similar to granting an exclusive licence to the publisher, an author can also grant the same non-exclusive rights to another publisher or party. A non-exclusive licence means that more than one publisher could have the right to publish a work. However, there may be qualifiers within these licenses, such as confirming that one publisher has the right to first publication of the work.

Publishing under a Creative Commons licence

If a publisher intends to publish the work under an open licence, typically a Creative Commons licence, then the work will be made freely available for further distribution under the terms of the licence. The publisher will likely ask for first publication rights, this may be under a non-exclusive or exclusive publishing agreement. If publishing under a more restrictive CC licence such as CC BY-NC-ND, the publisher may request that the remaining rights be exclusively signed over to them. In rare cases, publishers may also ask for a transfer of copyright to the publisher. To understand more about Creative Commons licences, see our page selecting a licence for your work .

There is no publishing agreement

Some publishers do not use publishing agreements, in which case, they only have the right to publish the work for the purpose it was submitted. For example, if an author submits an article to a particular journal and there is no agreement in place, the publisher can only publish the article in the issue for which it was submitted. The publisher is not then able to re-publish the article in an annual collection of popular articles without the permission of the author.

Related topics

More information.

• Contact the University Copyright Office

Selecting a licence for your work

Creative Commons (CC) licences allow authors to nominate how they would like people to be able to use and reuse their work. Applying a CC licence to a work, signals to others how the copyright owner would like to be attributed if their work is reused.

More information can be found at Creative Commons Australia .

Creative Commons licences

The below table provides information on what each licence means for the author and/or copyright holder, and a generic sample text that can be included in a publication.

It is best practice to include the sample text, below at the beginning of a work, so that the rights being licenced are immediately clear to anyone, wishing to reuse the work. If possible, it is also useful to include a licence statement in the information on the landing page where works are hosted.

To find out which licence you would like to allocate to a work visit the Creative Commons licence chooser .

Licences and contracts

Within the copyright context, many different licences are used for a variety of purposes and/or circumstances. A licence is generally granted by a copyright owner (or on their behalf) giving a user or a group of users some or all rights to use copyright material for certain purposes. The conditions of the licence override the standard provisions of copyright legislation and users must always adhere to the stated conditions of the licence. Some of the different types of licences include:

Statutory licences (for educational purposes)

These are licences that are provided within the Copyright Act for use by certain groups for certain purposes. The most relevant for the University are the statutory licences for educational purposes. These are set up under Section 113P of the Act, and allow the University to copy and communicate copyright material for educational purposes.

Music licence

This is a licence between the Universities and the Music Collecting Societies of Australia that allows limited use of recorded music for educational purposes. For more information see the music licence .

Licensed databases

The University Library subscribes to a vast array of online information, such as databases and electronic journals. Each of these subscriptions is underpinned by a licence or a contract between the University and the database provider. The licence or contract will outline how the database can be used and by whom. Conditions of the licence for individual databases vary considerably. If using information from a licensed Library database for any purpose other than research or study, please contact the Copyright Office for advice.

Terms and conditions of use

Many websites, media items (CDs, DVDs, podcasts, software etc.) and printed publications contain a copyright statement or disclaimer and/or 'Terms and Conditions' statement which provide details of the permitted uses of the material. These terms and conditions should be strictly adhered to.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons is a way to licence copyright material, so that people can use this material in certain ways without having to seek permission. The licences allow the public to use material free of charge under the varying levels of restrictions that are outlined in the six standardised licences. Flickr.com - the popular photo sharing website - is an example of a web service using Creative Commons licences. Research these licences before applying them, so as to understand how the licences work and if they will work for any future iterations of any proposed research/works.

General waiver

Sometimes a copyright owner waives copyright by saying, for example, that their material may be freely used for any purposes, or for non-profit purposes only, etc.

Commissioning works

When commissioning or contracting someone to create a work, it is recommended that licencing agreements explicitly state the transfer limitations of any current research requirements or foreseen research/publishing requirements or uses. Transfer requirements need to be clearly explained, understood by all parties and signed. If not laid out and signed clearly the rights to the commissioned works could be owned by the creator, regardless of who paid for the work. The person commissioning the work may have an implied licence unless the contract/licence assigns copyright to someone else. The contract/licence may also specify when and how the work will be used. For information contact the Copyright Office or the Legal and Risk team.

For more information see Australian Copyright Council Information Sheet G024 Assigning & Licensing Rights .

Copyright and your thesis

Researchers own copyright in their thesis. Under copyright, researchers have certain rights in their thesis such as:

• reproduction rights.
• publishing rights.
• communication rights, such as making the thesis available online.

As authors, researchers also have moral rights over their theses.

In some cases, research agreements or publishing agreements may affect the rights of a researcher's work, such as determining if a thesis can be made available on open access or if a thesis is connected to an embargo period.

Making a thesis available on open access

Before making a thesis available on open access, check that there are no legal or contractual qualifiers connected to the planned Open Access material release. Below are some possible examples:

• The clearance of any third-party material rights when they are included in the thesis.
• Any agreements/contracts, involving pre-published works.
• Any pending patent applications.
• The terms of research or funding agreements.
• The inclusion of any politically or legally sensitive information.

Dealing with copyright material created by other people

Seek permission from the copyright owner before including third-party copyright material in a thesis, unless there is a licence, agreement or exception that allows the inclusion of the third-party works in the thesis. Permission does not need to be sought if:

• Copyright in the work has  expired .
• An  insubstantial portion is included, for example, quotes from a book or journal article. Be careful if using quotes or excerpts from short works such as songs, poems or pieces of music as small portions are less likely to be considered insubstantial.
• An express  license allows the inclusion of the work, in the thesis, e.g. a contract, website conditions.
• Creative Commons material, copyright owner has explicitly waived copyright, etc.
• Use is covered under  fair dealing provisions .

Particular care should be taken if the thesis includes music, sound recordings or films as clearing the rights for this material can be difficult.

If unable to clear the rights for third party copyright material, it may be possible to publish a redacted version of the thesis on open access. A redacted version is one with any uncleared copyright material removed. For more information see the section on redacted version of your thesis.

Make sure that all third-party copyright material is acknowledged in theses, include full bibliographic citations.

Seeking permission to use copyright material

It is important to start the process of obtaining permission, as soon as possible when seeking permission to clear the rights to use third-party copyright material. Obtaining permission is an often lengthy and complex process. Sometimes a licensing fee may have to be paid, as it may not be possible to obtain permission.

All permission requests must be in writing. Keep copies of all permission documents as records of what permissions have been obtained. These records are considered legal documents and need to be kept for the copyright length of the thesis or as long as the thesis remains in open access. The University may request access to these permission documents.

Theses may need to be embargoed or published in redacted versions, where the third -party material has been removed while permission is being obtained or because permission cannot be obtained.

Refer to the Requesting permission from a copyright owner to reproduce material page for information on how to seek permission to use third-party copyright material.

Listing third party copyright material

The preparation of graduate research theses' rules requires the listing of all third-party copyright material included in theses and whether permissions from the copyright owners has been obtained. These permissions will be included in any open access version of theses. Third-party copyright includes:

• Audio-visual material, including sound recordings – both musical and non-musical – or films.

When creating the list of third-party copyright material included in a thesis, please use the template for listing third party copyright material (DOCX 13.5 KB) .

Conferences and public lectures

Presenting at a conference.

If including third-party copyright, within a conference presentation make sure that rights to use the material are secured prior to the conference. There are limited provisions in the Copyright Act that allows the reuse of copyright material at conferences. A brief quote or short extract of text can be included without have to secure rights; see insubstantial portions . Also, rights do not have to be secured for material that is being critiqued or reviewed; see fair dealing for criticism or review .

Try and source material that is "copyright friendly". For example, Flickr has a wide range of photos licensed under Creative Commons, as does Google Images. See the following guides:

• Flickr and Creative Commons images
• Google images and Creative Commons images

In most other situations permission from the copyright owner will have to be sought. When seeking permission clarify any potential uses, such as the intention to publish the conference paper or to upload the conference paper into an online environment.  Check with conference organisers if they plan to do any of the above or if they plan to record or stream the presentation. If presenters plan to do any of the above and third-party material is included in these presentation methods, permission will have to be sought from the third-party copyright holder explicitly stating how the material is going to be used, prior to the conference.

Additionally, presenters at conference have performers' rights if they are asked to record, stream or upload their presentations onto platforms.  Request a written explanation of how a recording will be used at a conference, before agreeing to be involved. Ideally there will be a formal agreement that presenters are asked to sign.

Organising a conference

If the University is hosting a conference, it is important that steps are taken to make sure that the conference is copyright compliant.

Obtain permission from presenters if there are requirements to record, upload or stream performances or if there is a requirement to upload their papers. The University's audio/video/photograph release and IP licence form can be used. The consent deed also allows the recording to be made available online.

Consent will need to be obtained If intending to film or photograph participants or presenters. The audio/video/photograph release and IP licence form covers both filming and photographing. The photo release consent deed is sufficient if only photographing the presenters. See the Copyright site's  photographing or filming people page for more information.

If conference presenters have included copyright material created by other people in their presentation, they will need to make sure that they have the necessary rights to use that material. There are limited provisions in the Copyright Act that covers the reusing of third-party copyright material at conferences however, permission is generally required from the copyright owner. See insubstantial portions and fair dealing for criticism and review .

Permission will need to be obtained from the presenters prior to the uploading or publishing of conference presentation papers, videos, etc.  Please contact the Copyright Office for more information.

The University has a music licence that allows music to be performed at conferences and other events hosted by the University. For more information see the music licence.

If an external conference has hired a University venue for their conference and the University is not actually hosting the conference but is simply providing the venue, it is the responsibility of the conference organisers to ensure that they comply with copyright. Contact the Copyright Office for assistance with this.

Protecting your work

In Australia, copyright material is subject to copyright as soon as it is created. While the author or creator does not have to do anything to gain copyright, it is advisable to make copyright ownership and any reuse conditions clear to others.

Below is a list of ways that will assist in clarifying copyright ownership and clarifying the reuse limitations around the material.

Include a copyright statement on works

A copyright statement is usually the copyright symbol - a lower case c in a circle, the name of the copyright owner (who may or may not be the author) and the year the work was created, e.g. © J. Smith 2010 or © University of Melbourne 2022.

A copyright statement alerts people to the fact that the work is subject to copyright and therefore, there may be restrictions in how to reuse the material.

The University owns Intellectual Property (IP) created by staff in the course of, or incidental to, employment with the University, except copyright in Scholarly Works. For further details see the University’s Intellectual Property policy .

Provide a full bibliographic citation

A full bibliographic citation will provide people with citation information and show them how to cite the work. Citing work isn’t just for published, peer reviewed research, it can be applicable to websites, blogs, images, and many other types of outputs. Check the University of Melbourne citation style guide to find a suitable style.

Include works in the UOM repository

Submit a version of research with author details to the UOM repository, this will create a formal record, that will verify copyright ownership of the research work. Include metadata associated with the work and   assign a Creative Commons licence to the work so people know how to reuse the work. Many repositories also generate a full bibliographic citation (as discussed above) based on the provided information.

Such repositories include:

• Melbourne.Figshare
• OpenScienceFramework
• Humanities Commons.

Include instructions for people who wish to contact the copyright owner for permission to include or reuse excerpts of a work

By providing an email address or contact details people will be more inclined to contact the copyright owner to ask for permission.

Consider further impact and outreach potential for copyright

Copyright works have the potential to be translated, in ways that will have further impacts in societies, cultures, the environment, policy and other areas. Consider alternate pathways for works, the potential benefits that can come about due to the research, within the work.  The impact of works within different sectors. Thinking in this way will help with the conceptualisation of how a work might be translated. If extra support is needed on exploring the commercial concepts around a work contact Research, Innovation and Commercialisation, (RIC ). RIC can provide advise on potential business uses for IP and can also advise on commercialisation of IP.

Copyright infringement

Action can be taken against an individual or an organisation if they are responsible for infringing copyright. Clarify that the use of work is actually an infringement, before taking action as there are provisions in the Copyright Act that allow people to use copyright material without needing permission.

If the University of Melbourne is the copyright owner of the allegedly infringed work , seek assistance through the Copyright Office.

If you are the copyright owner issue a takedown notice or contact independent legal advice.

If copyright has been transferred to a publisher, then any infringement should be pursued by the publisher.

Basic principles of copyright

What is copyright, duration of copyright, ownership of copyright, copyright ownership at the university of melbourne, rights of copyright owners, students' introduction to copyright, types of copyright material, literary works, performances, artistic works, sound recordings and radio broadcasts, computer software and games, films and television broadcasts, dramatic works, musical works, using copyright material, adapting copyright material, insubstantial portions, copyright friendly images, identifying infringing material, the music licence, public events, photographing or filming people, fair dealing, personal use, citing material, moral rights and citing material.

University of Kansas Medical Center

A.R. Dykes Library

Publishing research.

• Authors' Guide to Publishing
• Copyright Agreements
• Open Access
• Bibliometrics
• Research Profiles
• Journal and Publisher Evaluation
• Dissertations & Theses: Using Your Published Articles This link opens in a new window

Copyright Transfer Agreement

Authors are the copyright holders of their work from the moment of creation until they decide to transfer rights to someone else, such as a publisher. Authors may lawfully transfer all, some, or none of their copyrights.

When an author submits an article to a journal publisher, the publisher requires the author to sign a Copyright Transfer Agreement. The Copyright Transfer Agreement is legally binding and grants the publisher either non-exclusive or exclusive rights to distribute the article. When the publisher is granted exclusive rights to the article, no one, including the author, can re-use the article for any other purposes without seeking permission from the publisher.

It is important to read and understand the copyright transfer agreement in order for the author to know what rights the author retains and what rights the publisher retains. If the rights the author wants to retain are not included in the CTA, then the author should modify the CTA by inserting his/her own language into the Agreement or by using this  Author Addendum

The time to read and make changes to the Copyright Transfer Agreement is before it is signed . Once the agreement is signed, the likelihood of getting the publisher to modify the author rights is minimal. Copyright lasts 95 years if owned by a corporate entity. Once a copyright transfer agreement is signed over to a publisher, the publisher gets to control all of the access in all formats (known or unknown!) for a very long time.

What to look for when you read a Copyright Transfer Agreement:

What rights is the publisher requiring you to transfer?

Is the publisher requiring you give exclusive rights or non-exclusive rights to the publisher? Exclusive rights are the most restrictive.

The time to negotiate the Copyright Transfer Agreement is at the time a signature is required for the transfer. Some publishers require the CTA at the time of manuscript submission.  Request that you wait until the paper has been accepted. If you must sign upon submission, be sure to read the transfer agreement and negotiate your terms in the event the manuscript is accepted. Some journals have an online submission process that requires that you accept the publisher's terms and don't give you any chance to negotiate or include an author's addendum.  If this is the case,  copy the agreement and save it, edit it with the the rights you want to and send your copyright transfer by email instead.

• What rights does the CTA permit the author to retain?

Are there rights the author wants to retain that the CTA does not include? If so, those rights need to be inserted before signing the agreement

• How does the CTA address co-authors?

Does the CTA have provisions for government employee or work-for-hire authors who represent their institution? What are they?

Be wary of an agreement in which the publisher considers you as the author a work for hire by the publisher. Seek advice if you see this provision since the agreement might prohibit you from publishing future works with other publishers!

• Does the CTA address the NIH Mandate ? Will the publisher submit the article to PubMed Central on the author's behalf? What version of the manuscript will the publisher submit to PMC?

Keep in mind, it does not hurt to ask for rights you want to retain. If the publisher says no, you can decide whether you want to continue with the submission. At  least you will have a thorough understanding of the terms to which you agreed.

Lastly, you must save a copy of your Copyright Transfer Agreement for future reference!

Examples of Copyright Language

• Elsevier Copyright Transfer Agreement Example A typical Elsevier Copyright Transfer Agreement
• Society Publisher Copyright Transfer Agreement Example
• BioMed Central Copyright License Agreement Example from Open Access Publisher
• Creative Commons Author Addenda Suggestions for maintaining additional rights
• << Previous: Authors' Guide to Publishing
• Next: Open Access >>
• Last Updated: Aug 2, 2023 8:11 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.kumc.edu/authors

Published By Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center

Copyright research.

Most of the chapters in this book discuss when and how to seek permission from a copyright owner when using a copyrighted work. But what if you don’t know who owns the copyright or how to find the owner? This chapter explains how to conduct a very specific type of research: finding information about copyright ownership and validity. This information is usually contained in U.S. Copyright Office and Library of Congress records, on copyright registrations, assignments, renewals, and related documents. This chapter explains how to search these documents, including how to gather information to prepare for your searches.

It’s possible you may not have to perform copyright research. You may be able to locate all the copyright information you need through other sources. However, if you seek permissions on a regular basis, there may come a time when you will have to trace copyright ownership (known as “the chain of title”), determine the first date of publication, or find out if copyright for a work has been renewed.

Before walking you through the basics of copyright research and approaches, this chapter begins with answers to some common questions regarding copyright ownership and transfers.

This chapter does not cover other types of research, such as locating stock photos or private databases of art or music . For more media-specific research, review the relevant chapter that covers the type of media you seek (see Table of Contents).

Copyright Office records are not always conclusive. Records of the Copyright Office and Library of Congress are helpful for locating ownership information and determining copyright status. Unfortunately, these records don’t always show the whole picture because filing copyright registration and assignment (transfer of copyright ownership) documents is not mandatory. Because you don’t have to file these documents to own a copyright, there may not be a Copyright Office record regarding a particular work.

Despite this fact, it is still worth your while to search the Copyright Office and the Library of Congress—the largest repositories of copyrighted materials in the United States. In addition, even if you can’t find records of ownership, your research will demonstrate that you acted in good faith and are an “innocent infringer” in the event that you are later sued for an unauthorized use, which will limit any damages you may have to pay.

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Assignment/Transfer of Copyright Ownership

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Elsevier Policies

In order for Elsevier to publish and disseminate research articles, we need certain publishing rights from authors, which are determined by a publishing agreement between the author and Elsevier.

For articles published open access, the authors license exclusive rights in their article to Elsevier where a CC BY-NC-ND end user license is selected, and license non-exclusive rights where a CC BY end user license is selected.

For articles published under the subscription model, the authors typically transfer copyright to Elsevier. In some circumstances, authors may instead grant us (or the learned society for whom we publish) an exclusive license to publish and disseminate their work.

Regardless of whether they choose to publish open access or subscription with Elsevier, authors have many of the same rights under our publishing agreement, which support their need to share, disseminate and maximize the impact of their research.

For open access articles, authors will also have additional rights, depending on the Creative Commons end user license that they select. This Creative Commons license sets out the rights that readers (as well as the authors) have to re-use and share the article. Learn how articles can be re-used and shared under these licenses .

This page aims to summarize authors’ rights when publishing with Elsevier; these are explained in more detail in the publishing agreement between the author and Elsevier.

Irrespective of how an article is published, Elsevier is committed to protect and defend authors’ works and their reputation. We take allegations of infringement, plagiarism, ethical disputes, and fraud very seriously.

Author rights

The below table explains the rights that authors have when they publish with Elsevier, for authors who choose to publish either open access or subscription. These apply to the corresponding author and all co-authors.

Institution rights

Regardless of how the author chooses to publish with Elsevier, their institution has the right to use articles for classroom teaching and internal training. Articles can be used for these purposes throughout the author’s institution, not just by the author:

Government rights

For US government employees, works created within the scope of their employment are considered to be public domain and Elsevier's publishing agreements do not require a transfer or license of rights for such works.

In the UK and certain commonwealth countries, a work created by a government employee is copyrightable, but the government may own the copyright (Crown copyright). Please find information about UK government employees publishing open access .

Find out more

Download a sample publishing agreement for articles financed by journal subscriptions in  English   opens in new tab/window and  French   opens in new tab/window

Download a sample publishing agreement for articles published open access with a commercial user license (CC BY) in English   opens in new tab/window and French   opens in new tab/window .

Download a sample publishing agreement for articles published open access with a non-commercial user license (CC BY-NC-ND) in English   opens in new tab/window and French   opens in new tab/window .

Download a sample publishing agreement for articles published open access with a non-commercial user license (CC BY-NC) in English   opens in new tab/window and French   opens in new tab/window .

For authors who wish to self-archive see our  sharing guidelines

See our  author pages  for further details about how to promote your article

See our  hosting page for additional information on hosting research published by Elsevier

For use of Elsevier material not defined here please see our  permissions page or visit the  Permissions Support Center   opens in new tab/window

If an author has become aware of a possible plagiarism, fraud or infringement we recommend contacting their Elsevier publishing contact who can then liaise with our in-house legal department

If you are publishing in a society or third party owned journal, they may have different publishing agreements. Please see the journal's Guide for Authors for journal specific copyright information

Library Services

Copyright and your research publications

This page addresses copyright related to your research publications.

The advice provided here is framed by  UCL's open access policy and research funders' open access policies, which have specific requirements on licensing and sharing research publications. 

Research publications, publishing agreements, and authors' rights

You do, at least in most circumstances. This is defined by the UCL IP Policy .

Members of staff : the default legal position is that an employer owns any intellectual property rights, including copyright, created by an employee in the course of employment. UCL waives this right in the case of the copyright in scholarly articles, conference papers, monographs and other research publications created by its employees in the course of employment. However, there are some very significant exceptions where UCL does claim ownership and these are listed in the policy. The exceptions include patents, design rights and computer software.

Where you own the copyright to your publications, UCL claims a wide-ranging licence to reuse "…academic and teaching materials in all formats (now known or yet to be devised), which are generated by members of staff arising out of employment by UCL ."

Students : the general position of the UCL IP Policy is that you would own the copyright and other forms of intellectual property in your own work. There are some significant exceptions , which may apply if for example your research is part of a larger collaborative project or if it is funded by an external organisation. If one of the exceptions applies, then as a research research student you may be required to assign your intellectual property rights, including copyright, to UCL.

If you are one of a number of co-authors in a publication, then the copyright will probably belong to you jointly with your fellow authors.

In the first instance, therefore, you would usually own copyright to your publications. However, when publishing your research you might be asked to assign the copyright to the publisher. By doing so you restrict how you may reuse your own work. See rights retention  for more information on this.

Most publishers in traditional (subscription) journals ask you to sign a copyright transfer agreement on acceptance. Publishers may state various reasons for requesting this; for example claiming that, by transferring your copyright to them, you enable them to manage reuse requests, to protect the article against infringement, to protect its integrity, and to increase the visibility of the article through various parties.

By assigning your copyright you lose any control on how it is reproduced in the future. You may find you need the publisher’s permission if you want to reuse your own work subsequently; for example, to make your work available in an open access repository, use your publication in your teaching, or include it in a future work. For this reason, it is worth considering whether there are alternatives available which allow you to retain the copyright, such as granting the publisher a non-exclusive licence to publish the work. Where possible, you should try to negotiate the details of the agreement with the publisher if you are unhappy with the details.

Some publishers may offer you an option to retain your copyright and sign an exclusive licence (often called 'licence to publish') instead. In practice, an exclusive licence means that you have the same restrictions reusing your work as you would if you had signed away your copyright. The publisher will still be granted rights that no one else (including you) will have, including publishing and distribution rights of the work in any media, now and in the future, and the right to give permission to others to reuse your work.

Usually these terms would apply from the point of acceptance, meaning that you would not be able to share your accepted manuscript with others unless the publisher gave you permission to do so.

You should look closely at the small print of any contract rather than rushing to sign. Where possible, try to look at the agreement as early as possible - ideally, before you submit to a journal or commit to writing a monograph or book chapter. The following checklist includes several points you may want to consider.

Check that you still have the right to publish, that you have not already assigned the copyright to someone else or granted someone an exclusive licence.

Reusing your work

Consider the listed actions. Which ones apply to you? Does the publisher agreement prevent you from using your work in the following ways? If the agreement you are asked to sign prevents from reusing your work, there are things you can do allowing you to retain these rights.

• Make the work (e.g., article, book chapter, monograph) available in an open access repository, as soon as it is accepted for publication, and at the latest as soon as it is published. Also onsider any  funder requirements that may apply here.
• Make the work reusable by others, i.e. by making it available under a Creative Commons licence .
• Be able to share a preprint  of the work. Some copyright transfer agreements may ask you to sign away exclusive rights to the preprint version, and this may affect your ability to continue sharing the work in this way.
• Share your work on social media, including academic social networks such as ResearchGate.
• Reuse the work in your teaching, e.g. share it with students as part of a module or reuse parts in a lecture.
• Reuse as part of public engagement activities.
• Be able to give permission to others to adapt (e.g., translate) the work or reuse the work in other ways.
• Reuse in future works, such as an anthology.
• Reuse in a thesis.

Moral rights

In UK copyright law , moral rights include the right to be attributed as the author of a work, the right to object to derogatory treatment of the work (e.g., any changes to your work that would distort it or damage your reputation as an author) and the right to object to false attribution. If you do decide to assign your copyright to the publisher, you can still assert your moral rights by striking out any clause asking you to waive these rights.

Additional considerations for books

Book contracts will differ from standard copyright transfer agreements or licences for journal articles.  Points besides copyright that need to be addressed may include delivery timescales (e.g., delivery of manuscript by the author, delivery of proof copy by the publisher, production timescales); royalties; cancellation clauses etc. As with copyright, it is advisable to read the contract carefully and seek advice or challenge certain points if necessary.

You may have several options. The one you choose will partly depend on the options offered by the publisher, on what funds are available to support some of these options, and on your willingness to negotiate with the publisher.

Publish open access

Open access publishing options may be available. If a journal or a book publisher offers an open access publishing option, there may be costs to publish open access. Look up UCL open access funding options for journal articles  and for monographs and book chapters . UCL Press offers open access publishing at no cost for UCL authors.

Publishing open access ensures that your article is immediately and freely available online and that it is also licensed in a way that allows others to reuse it in specified ways, and with attribution to you. This is ensured by publishing the work under a Creative Commons licence . In most cases, the recommended licence to choose in open access publishing is the Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY) .

Publishing open access does not in itself affect your ownership of the copyright in your work. While it is usually the case that, when publishing open access, you retain copyright and normally make the work available under an open licence, it is still recommended that you check the details of your agreement with the publisher to understand how the ownership of your copyright is affected, and which licence is applied.

Sign an agreement or licence to publish; but try to negotiate specific reuses of your work

Open access publishing is not always available or possible. If you publish via the traditional (subscription) model, you may decide to sign the agreement or licence you sign offered to you by the publisher. Terms in the agreement may still allow you to reuse your work in specific ways; for example, to post the accepted manuscript in an open access repository, usually with a delay (embargo) of 12-24 months after publication; to use parts of the work in your teaching; and to reuse in am anthology or in a thesis.

You may want to check a publisher's policy regarding how you allow you to share your work before you even submit an article or book proposal. If possible, try to find or ask to read the publisher's standard copyright transfer agreement early on; or check your journal's policy ; there is also some information on related policies for books . You may want to suggest changes to the agreement, to ensure that certain reuses important to you are permitted.

While many publisher agreements will allow you some reuse, the terms of reuse can still be very restrictive; and the publisher, holding the copyright or an exclusive licence to your work, is still in control of your work in every way other than the permissions they grant you. In terms of open access, embargoes and a lack of a licence that allows maximum reuse ( Creative Commons ) are at odds with the aims of open access, which call for immediate and unrestricted availability of the work. In principle your paper could be publicly available in an open access repository and still be "all rights reserved": people would be able freely to read your work, but they would still need the publisher's permission to reuse it in any way. It is worth keeping this in mind when you choose to publish in a particular journal or with a particular publisher.

Rights retention

Rights retention is a simple way to assert your rights to your accepted manuscript early on: at the time of submission. This will allow you to make your work open access, and also to reuse it in many other ways, for example share it with your students, post it on social networks etc.

To apply rights retention, you need to act on submission . For more information, see the rights retention section.

Rights retention enables you to reuse your publications in your research and teaching and to share them publicly with others. This offers you more freedom as to where you publish and how you reuse and share your publications, including making them Open Access in line with funder and REF requirements.

With respect to research articles and conference proceedings, rights retention is ensured via a relatively simple mechanism where you retain the rights to your author accepted manuscript at the time of submission and apply an open licence (usually a Creative Commons Attribution licence; CC BY or CC BY-ND) to this version. By doing so, you ensure that the accepted version of the article is immediately open and reusable at the point of publication, without the need for permission or negotiation with the publisher.

Rights retention has several benefits for you:

• By asserting the rights to your peer-reviewed, accepted manuscript, you can make your article open access immediately on publication: publisher open access embargoes no longer apply.
• Applying a Creative Commons licence to your accepted manuscript means that, while you own the copyright, you allow others to share and reuse it with attribution to you. This means your research can have a far-reaching impact.
• Retaining rights to your research articles means that, in cases where open access publishing is not possible, you can still make your research open access, in line with funder and REF requirements. This widens your choice of publication avenues, as you do not need to worry whether a journal offers a compliant open access policy or publication option.
• Retaining rights also means that you can do many other things with your own work that normally a publisher would not allow you to do if you had assigned the copyright or exclusive rights to them. For example, you can share the accepted version with students and industrial partners, post it on platforms such as SSRN and ResearchGate, and use it for public engagement activities.
• By supporting rights retention, you also help make scholarly communication more equitable and sustainable, both for authors and readers. You help remove fiancial and legal barriers that prevent research from being openly disseminated and reused: barriers often imposed on the authors themselves.

When you submit to a journal, add a short statement in: (a) the cover letter and (b) the funder acknowledgement section, indicating that you will apply an open licence (usually a CC BY licence) to any accepted manuscript arising from the submission.

If you are funded by UKRI or the Wellcome trust, the funders provide a set statement for you to include. You may also use these statements for articles not funded by UKRI or the Wellcome trust. For more information, please see the Open Access website .

Using copyright materials in your publications

Publishers expect you to get permission to include any copyright materials in your journal article.

• Check your publisher's own guidelines on this. 
• You don't need permission to include materials that are out of copyright, original materials created by you and for which you own the rights, or materials published open access under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. You may still need to provide evidence or a declaration that you can reuse them (e.g., a a link to the open access/CC BY article).
• You normally need permission to include any other copyright materials. If the materials were created by you and published in an article, you will still need permission to reuse them if the publisher has the copyright or an exclusive licence to your article.  Similarly, you will need permission to include materials licensed under a CC BY-NC licence (as permission is required for any commercial reuse).
• If the materials were included in an article published by the same publisher as the one you are submitting to, often permission is not necessary to reuse them. Please check with your publisher.
• You submit permission requests for a lot of published content via the RightsLink site . You will need to create an account to do this. Some publishers prefer that you contact them directly. The STM Association has a useful set of permissions guidelines , including a list of publisher contact details with instructions on how to request permission.
• Whether permission is required or not, you should always credit the source.

Yes; there are some additional points to address.

• When seeking permission to include materials in an open access publication, you should make it clear to the rights holder that your publication will be open access under a particular open licence (e.g., CC BY).
• If the copyright owner is reluctant to have their work included in another work with an open licence, they may agree to their materials being included under a copyright disclaimer or a more restrictive licence than the rest of your publication. For example, your book may be licensed under a CC BY licence but include images that are not openly licensed and have been included with permission. In these cases, you should include the copyright notice with the image. You should also make it clear that any licence you have published under does not apply to all the content. A statement such as 'Unless otherwise stated, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence' helps clarify that third-party materials are excluded from your licence and may not be reused without permission.

Further resources:

• UKRI guidance on managing third-party copyright for research publications  
• JISC guidance on publishing under the UKRI open access policy: copyright and Creative Commons licences
• OA books toolkit website .

UCL Copyright

• Email [email protected]
• Online teaching and learning : new copyright guidance on using film and other material

"Why can't I use it? I found it on the internet"

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Copyright blog

Copyright and genai: new post on ucl open science blog..

How does copyright apply to AI-generated works?

Read our guest post in the Copyright and Open Science series .

If you have any questions on copyright, please contact [email protected] . You may also be interested in our copyright resources and training .

21st June 2024

Developing a Copyright Literacy Community at UCL

Copyright literacy – the ‘knowledge, skills and behaviours that individuals require when working with copyright content in the digital age’ ( Morrison and Secker, 2015 ) – is an essential part of academic and professional skillsets. It is also much more than complying with licences and the law. It is about understanding how copyright came to be, what it seeks to achieve, whose interests are relevant and how it can be used as a tool to make knowledge more open and collaborative.

29th April 2024

Copyright and your research: new series on UCL Open Science blog

8th April 2024

Wrapping up fair dealing week 2024: what next?

This Fair Dealing Week is coming to a close. This blog has clarified a few points on copyright, copyright exceptions and fair dealing:

1st March 2024

Copyright myth #4: the appeal of set percentages.

29th February 2024

Copyright myth #3: ‘I can use materials without permission if the use is non-commercial’.

28th February 2024

Copyright myth #2: ‘Acknowledging a source removes the need for permission’

27th February 2024

Copyright myth #1: ‘free to access’ means ‘free to reuse’

This year we are marking  Fair Dealing Week (26 February to 1 March 2024) with a series of blog posts addressing some copyright myths. Our first post starts with a simple but important message.

26th February 2024

‘Keeping it fair and honest’: how copyright exceptions can support your thesis, publications and teaching.

22nd February 2024

How can AI help you with your systematic literature review? Reflections from a two-day seminar.

Guest post by Veronica Parisi, Training and Clinical Support team, Cruciform Hub, UCL.

29th January 2024

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Copyright grants an author of an original work the exclusive rights to:

• To reproduce the work in copies (e.g., through photocopying)
• To distribute copies of the work
• To prepare translational or other derivative works
• To perform or display the work publicly
• To authorize others to exercise any of these rights
• To reuse your work in teaching, future publications, and in all scholarly and professional activities.
• To post your work on the web (sometimes referred to as “self-archiving”), in a disciplinary archive (such as PubMed Central or arXiv), or in an institutional repository, such as Iowa Research Online. 

Copyright protection applies to any work that:

• Is an original work of authorship
• Involves some aspect of creative expression or analytical interpretation. Facts cannot be copyrighted
• Fixed in a fixed, tangible form of expression, published or unpublished.

(From  What is Copyright? ) , U.S. Copyright Office) 

You own your copyright from the moment the work is created, and there is no need to register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office. Registering a work, however, is required for certain publishing activities and can be helpful if you ever find yourself in a legal copyright dispute. You will own your copyright until 70 years after your death unless you transfer the rights to a publisher or other party. 

But there are some limits. Eventually, your copyright will expire and become part of the  Public Domain . Your work may also be subject to  Fair Use  guidelines, allowing others to to use it in certain contexts. Finally, intellectual property created as part of a person's job can be considered "work-for-hire," and copyrightable by an author's employer. The University’s Intellectual Property Policy provides more information about the types of works it considers work-for-hire. 

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Making research and scholarship as widely available as possible supports the University of Iowa’s mission "to advance scholarly and creative endeavor through leading-edge research and artistic production; to use this research and creativity to enhance undergraduate, graduate, and professional education, health care, and other services provided to the people of Iowa, the nation, and the world."

However, publishers can create significant barriers for authors who want to reuse their work, or allow others to use it, especially if the publisher has obtained the copyright to an author's work. The terms of copyright and/or licensing are typically outlined in an author agreement when a manuscript is accepted for publication, and under these agreements, copyright is most often transferred to the publisher. Negotiating changes to these standard agreements can help authors avoid unfortunate barriers to reuse and sharing.

Here are some terms you may consider negotiating: 

Agree to copyright transfer, but reserve key rights . Before signing, modify the contract to specify the rights you wish to retain, even if the copyright now belongs to the publisher. These may include the right to deposit a copy of your article in a repository or to share and reuse your work for other scholarly and teaching activities. 

Keep you copyright and transfer  limited rights  to the publisher.  Retaining your copyright is a more ideal situation because it provides the author with more control over their work. There are different ways to approach this.

Option One : Cross out the original exclusive transfer language in the publication contract that your publisher provides and replace it with text such as the following:

“The author grants to the Publisher exclusive first publication rights in the Work, and further grants a non-exclusive license for other uses of the Work for the duration of its copyright in all languages, throughout the world, in all media. The Publisher shall include a notice in the Work saying "© [Author's Name]. Readers of this article may copy it without the copyright owner's permission, if the author and publisher are acknowledged in the copy and copy is used for educational, not-for-profit purposes.”

Option Two:  Use the University of Iowa's authors addendum , or any author addendum you find suitable (the " resources " page at the end of this guide has links to other addenda). An addendum provides you with the additional opportunity to grant other rights to the public - such as the freedom to use the work for non-commercial purposes provided attribution is given - which fosters further use and impact of your work.

Option Three:  The  Creative Commons  organization helps you publish your work online while letting others know exactly what they can and can't do with your work. When you choose a license, CC provides you with tools and tutorials that let you add license information to your own site, or to one of several free hosting services that have incorporated Creative Commons. (See the " open licensing " page for more details about using Creative Commons licenses.)

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From Seizing the Moment: Scientists’ Authorship Rights in the Digital Age (report of a study by the American Association for the Advancement of Science), July 2002.

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Author Retains Copyright & Range of Non-Commercial Uses:

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Previously, we looked at the divisions growing in the open access community and an overview as to what Creative Commons is and how it applies to academic research.  However, all of this points to a much larger question: Why is copyright in research such an important issue for research?To understand this, we first have to look at what copyright is and then how it applies to research and why that application is crucial.

What is Copyright

Copyright, according to the U.S. Copyright Office , is a set of exclusive rights that are granted to a creator of a work of an original work authorship. Those rights include the right to make copies, publicly display a work, perform a work and create derivative works based upon it.

A creative work of authorship is basically any work that has a requisite level of creativity, which is almost any amount, and is fixed into a tangible medium of expression, such as being written on a sheet of paper, saved to a hard drive or otherwise made permanent. Copyright includes a variety of works including written works, paintings, photographs, music recordings, movies and much more.

However, many things can not be copyrighted including names, facts and ideas. While those, in some cases, can be protected by other types of intellectual property, including trademark and patent, they can not be protected under copyright.

What this means for researchers is that the ideas and the facts that are learned while conducting research or writing a paper are not copyrightable. However, the papers themselves (the expression of that information) can be. As such, every research paper, or draft thereof, is copyright protected the moment it is saved to a hard drive. 

That copyright, in turn, limits how others can use that paper. Without permission from the copyright holder, usually the author, no one else can legally post it on a web site, share it in a journal or even use lengthy passages of it for their own research. While fair use, an exemption to the exclusive rights of the copyright holder, may protect short quotes, copyright still limits the use of longer passages and the creation of derivative works.

However, copyright is like any other property. You can license others to use a copyrighted work and even sell it or give it away. This is why, when publishing a work, it’s important to understand what you are granting the journal. Is it a copyright transfer or a license? If it it’s the latter, what are the terms of that license?

That agreement and how the journal chooses to use the rights it obtains plays a key role in determining in how an article is distributed and what others can do with it. That, in turn, has a significant impact on how scientific knowledge is spread.

Copyright and Research

While copyright can’t restrict the facts and information learned during research, it can be used to restrict access to the research itself.

The most common approach that has been taken is simply restricting who can view the paper. Many non-open access journals would make articles available only to subscribers and since copyright prohibited copying and public display of the papers, it isn’t legally possible for someone else to come along and make copies for other sites or journals.

However, there are other ways copyright can restrict access to research. Since it’s an infringement to create derivative works based upon a copyrighted work without permission, long quotes or repeating a significant portion of a paper, even with attribution, could be infringing. This can add extra challenges to doing meta analyses and replicating results.

Creative Commons and other open licenses work around these issues by granting the public, including other researchers, permission to copy and build upon the work. This ensures that the research is always publicly available since it can be freely copied and shared and that anyone wishing to build upon the research will have no concerns about copyright when working.

However, open access and open copyright approaches to publishing are not without criticisms. Since opening up the copyright on a paper means that there is no business model in selling access to it, publishers often recoup the cost of publication by charging (or charging extra) those who publish in their open access journals. This has led to allegations of “pay to publish” research and the rise of predatory journals that collect publication fees but offer no other benefit.

But while neither approach is perfect, both approaches are built upon copyright, either using it to restrict access or having researchers pay to remove most copyright restrictions.

Bottom Line

In the end, scientific publishing is a business and no matter the model a publisher chooses, that business is based on copyright.

However, that choice made by the publisher and the researcher is going to have a profound impact on who has access to the research and what they can clearly do with it. So while the decisions about copyright may have been made for reasons independent of the research itself, it is a major factor in determining what will happen to the research after it is published.

Copyright is not an issue that is going to go away for researchers. As open access continues to build momentum and debates about copyright become more intense, the importance of the law is only going to grow.

As such, it’s crucial that researchers be aware of copyright. Not only so they don’t run afoul of it when publishing their work, but also so they can understand the laws that govern the business responsible for distributing their writing.

The opinions expressed here are my own and do not represent the views of iThenticate.

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