Author's Rights, Tout de Suite
Charles W. Bailey, Jr.
Digital Scholarship
www.digital-scholarship.org/
Houston, Texas
Copyright © 2008 by Charles W. Bailey, Jr. This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. To
view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative
Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
2Introduction
Author's Rights Tout de Suite is designed to give journal article authors a quick
introduction to key aspects of author's rights and to foster further exploration of
this topic through liberal use of relevant references to online documents and
links to pertinent Web sites.
Copyright, Self-Archiving, and Open Access Journals
Under current U.S. law, any work that you create in a "fixed medium," such as a
journal article, is under copyright and you are the copyright owner (this is also
true in many other countries under international copyright agreements). As
such, you can control how your article is used. Copyright is actually a bundle of
related rights; however, unless you want to write your own copyright
agreements or licenses, you do not need to concern yourself with the details of
these various rights. What is important is this: many journal publishers will
want you to give them your article copyright so that they can control it for their
business purposes (this is typically called a "copyright assignment").
Once you have done so, your ability to control your work is gone. What you
will be able to do with your article is determined by the copyright agreement
between you and the publisher and by your rights under "fair use" provisions in
copyright law.
Primarily as a result of the open access movement, many publishers now allow
you to put copies of your article on your personal Web page and/or deposit it in
a digital archive so that it is freely available on the Internet. The two main types
of digital archives are: (1) institutional repositories, which typically contain
digital works by authors from a single institution; and (2) disciplinary archives,
which contain works about one or more disciplines by authors from many
institutions across the globe. When you make a digital copy of an article
available on the Internet by one of these methods, it is said that you are
"self-archiving" the article.
There are several different versions of an article that can be self-archived: (1) a
preprint that has not been peer-reviewed or edited, (2) a postprint (the article
after it has been peer-reviewed), and (3) either the journal's published version of
the article or a postprint that the author has updated to mirror the published
version of the article.
3Although you may meet resistance from the publisher, it is possible to modify
the publisher's copyright agreement with an "addendum" that describes the
rights you want to retain. It is also possible to retain your copyright and grant
the publisher the right to publish the article.
While the publisher may offer you different copyright agreements to choose
from or even automatically allow you to retain your copyright, most publishers
will want you to accept their single standard copyright agreement without
modification. If the terms and conditions contained in this agreement are not
satisfactory, you will need to negotiate with the publisher or publish your work
elsewhere.
Some publishers make the contents of their journals available without charge on
the Internet, and they may allow authors to retain their copyrights. These
journals are called "open access journals." A subset of these publishers also
permit the reuse of articles with minimal restrictions (e.g., articles could be
translated without requiring further permission). Publishing your article in an
open access journal ensures that it will be freely available. While some open
access journals charge article publication fees, the majority do not, and funding
agencies and employers may pay these fees.
When articles are made freely available by publishers or through self-archiving,
this is called "gratis" open access. When they are also made available with
minimal use restrictions, this is called "libre" open access. See "Gratis and Libre
Open Access"
(http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/08-02-08.htm#gratis-libre) for
further details.
Conventional Publisher Agreements
One way to ensure that you can self-archive your article is to screen publishers'
copyright agreements to determine if they permit the kinds of self-archiving
rights that you want. Unfortunately, such agreements are not standardized and
they can be difficult to quickly find in journal or publisher Web sites. Most
typically, you need to look for them in an "author guidelines" page.
4A much faster way of screening publishers is to use the SHERPA/RoMEO
Publisher Copyright Policies & Self-Archiving Web site
(http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php). This Web site lets you search for
publishers by journal titles or names. It also allows you to browse publishers by
an assigned color code. The codes are:
 Green: You can archive both the preprint and postprint.
 Blue: You can archive the postprint (draft after peer review).
 Yellow: You can archive the preprint.
 White: You cannot archive either the preprint or postprint.
While these color codes are very helpful, it is important to carefully read the
entry for the desired journal looking for any conditions that the publisher
requires (such as a link to the published version of the article) or any special
restrictions the publisher is imposing. If you believe that you have found the
right journal for your article, it is advisable to follow the link to the publisher's
actual agreement and read it carefully.
It is especially important to note any restrictions on where you can self-archive
your work. For example, the publisher may allow you to archive a preprint on
your personal Web page and your institution's repository, but not in a
disciplinary repository. Depending on your discipline, your article may have
greater visibility to your peers in a disciplinary archive than elsewhere.
In the age of Internet search engines, your article will likely be indexed by
Google and other search engines no matter where it is archived. However, there
are two things to keep in mind. First, your personal Web page is transitory,
whereas a disciplinary or institutional repository is not. Second, disciplinary or
institutional repositories contain descriptive information (called "metadata")
about your article that can be aggregated by specialized search engines. This
descriptive information allows repository or aggregated search engines, such as
OAIster, to do more precise searching by article record fields, such as author or
title, than general Internet search engines now perform.
5Copyright Addenda
Journals are often highly specialized and they have varying levels of prestige and
authority. Naturally, you want to publish your article in the "best" journal
possible.
You may find that your most desired journal doesn't permit the kinds of
self-archiving that you want. What to do? There are two strategies.
First, you can reconsider less desirable journals that have more liberal policies.
Why? There is growing evidence , your article will be more widely known and
more frequently cited if it is self-archived or published in an open access journal.
You can find out more about how open access may increase articles' "citation
impact" at "The Effect of Open Access and Downloads ('Hits') on Citation Impact:
A Bibliography of Studies" (http://opcit.eprints.org/oacitation-biblio.html).
Second, you can ask the publisher to accept a modification of the copyright
agreement that gives you the rights that you want. In the past, a key problem
with this approach is that you were unlikely to be a copyright lawyer and,
consequently, you were in no position to create a legally binding addendum.
Fortunately, there are now a variety of copyright addenda that you can choose
from. The rights that authors retain in these addenda are "nonexclusive,"
meaning that other parties may also have these rights. The addenda typically
recognize that the author may have previously granted rights to his or her
institution or a funding agency. Below is a discussion of the main addenda.
6Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine,
(http://scholars.sciencecommons.org/: This online tool generates four
different types of addenda (see Author's Addendum,
http://sciencecommons.org/resources/faq/authorsaddendum, for further
information):
(1) Delayed Access: This addendum supports self-archiving in all
types of noncommercial digital repositories; however, while the
author may immediately self-archive the final version of the
article that includes changes from the peer-review process, the
author cannot self-archive the published version of the article
until six months after that version is available to journal
subscribers (proper attribution is required for the published
version). The author may make use of and make "derivative
works" from the article (e.g., translate it into another language)
for typical scholarly purposes. The addendum acknowledges
prior copyright grants to the author's institution or funding
agency.
(2) Access-Reuse: This is the SPARC Author Addendum to
Publication Agreement (see below).
(3) Immediate Access: With proper attribution, the author can
immediately self-archive any version of the article, including
the published version, in all types of noncommercial digital
repositories. The author may use the article for typical scholarly
purposes and make derivative works from it. The addendum
acknowledges prior copyright grants to the author's institution
or funding agency.
(4) MIT Amendment: This addendum supports self-archiving of the
published article in all types of noncommercial digital
repositories. The author may use the article for typical scholarly
purposes and make derivative works from it. The author may
authorize his or her institution to use the article in print or
digital formats for typical scholarly purposes.
7SPARC Author Addendum to Publication Agreement,
(http://www.arl.org/sparc/bm%7Edoc/Access-Reuse_addendum.doc):
This addendum supports self-archiving in all types of noncommercial
digital repositories. The author may use the article for noncommercial
purposes and make derivative works from it. The publisher must give the
author a free, unprotected digital copy of the article within 14 days of
publication. Given proper attribution, the author can authorize others to
use the article for noncommercial purposes. If you live in Canada, use the
SPARC Canadian Author Addendum instead
(http://www.carl-abrc.ca/projects/author/EngPubAgree.pdf).
Two other agreements may be useful for some non-U.S. authors:
 Canadian Model Publication Agreement,
http://www.openaccesslawcanada.ca/model.php
 JISC/SURF Foundation Copyright Toolbox: Authors,
http://copyrighttoolbox.surf.nl/copyrighttoolbox/authors/
Retaining Full Copyright
Another strategy is to retain the copyright to your article and then grant to the
publisher only the rights needed to publish the article. Many publishers will
resist copyright retention. It can be done be, but the author has to be willing to
walk away from an article publication offer if the publisher will not yield, and
the author will need to find another journal that is willing to accept the article
under the proposed copyright terms. If you retain your copyright, you will be
responsible for protecting it against infringement in the rare case that this is
required. Consequently, this strategy may be best suited for senior authors or
those who have strong feeling about open access.
The University of California Office of Scholarly Communication suggests the
following wording for authors wanting to retain their copyright
(http://osc.universityofcalifornia.edu/manage/keep_copyrights.html):
8The 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.
While having a written copyright agreement with the publisher is desirable, keep
in mind that if you do not sign your publisher's copyright assignment agreement
and your article is published anyway, you remain the copyright owner (see
"Works Made for Hire,"
http://keepyourcopyrights.org/copyright/rights/work-for-hire, for additional
information that may apply in some situations).
Creative Commons Licenses
As the copyright owner, you can grant rights to any user of your article, not just
publishers; however, to do so you must retain the copyright to your work.
Creative Commons licenses allow you to easily do this in a legally binding way
without having to hire a lawyer to draft a license for you.
There are a variety of Creative Commons licenses. The Creative Commons
Licenses page provides a brief description of them
(http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses).
Two licenses are especially noteworthy:
Attribution License: The Attribution License
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ ) allows any use of your
article, including commercial use and the creation of derivative works, if
there is proper attribution. If you use this license, you have granted to
your publisher all the rights it needs to publish your article. Use of this
license (or similar wording) is typically required by major open access
journal publishers.
9Attribution-Noncommercial License: The Attribution-Noncommercial
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) allows any use of
your article, including the creation of derivative works, if this use is
noncommercial and if there is proper attribution. This license if often
used by academics who want to prohibit commercial use without explicit
permission.
To use a Creative Commons license in the word processing file for your article,
pick a license from the Creative Commons Licenses page using the link under the
appropriate icon on the right. You will be taken to a new page that has
cut-and-paste HTML code on the left, and a list of suggested actions if you have
no Web site on the right.
From the list on the right, choose "Mark a document not on the web, add text to
your work," and cut and paste the displayed text into the end of your article file,
preceding it with at statement that says "Copyright © [year] [your name]." (The
word "Copyright" is optional in the U.S. as long as the copyright symbol is
present.)
For example:
Copyright © 2008 Charles W. Bailey, Jr. This work is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License. To
view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative
Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105,
USA.
Self-Archiving Your Article
It is recommended that you self-archive your article in your organization's
institutional repository even if you also self-archive it in a disciplinary
repository. If you are uncertain about whether your organization has one or how
to deposit an article in it, contact your organization's library or computer center
for assistance.
If your organization does not have an institutional repository or your scholarly
community uses a particular disciplinary archive, consider self-archiving your
article in a disciplinary archive.
10
To find disciplinary archives, use one of the below search tools:
 Disciplinary Repositories,
http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Disciplinary_repositories
 Directory of Open Access Repositories,
http://www.opendoar.org/find.php (Choose "Disciplinary" in "Any
Repository Type" box.)
 Registry of Open Access Repositories, http://roar.eprints.org/ (Choose
"Research Cross-Institutional" in "Any Content Type" box.)
Publishing in Open Access Journals
As noted previously, when you publish in an open access journal your article is
available without charge to anyone on the Internet. Moreover, depending on the
journal's use of Creative Commons or similar licenses, other scholars may be able
to reuse your article for teaching and other scholarly purposes without seeking
permission as long as they abide by the terms of the license in question.
To publish in an open access journal, you must first identify it. Since many open
access journals are relatively new, you may not be as familiar with the ones in
your field as you are with conventional journals.
The primary finding tool for open access journals is the Directory of Open Access
Journals (http://www.doaj.org/). This up-to-date directory lists currently
published scholarly journals that are freely available without delay upon
publication (some journals may require free registration for access). See the
selection criteria
(http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=loadTempl&templ=about#criteria) for more
information on how journals are screened.
Some conventional journals now have an option whereby, if the author pays a
fee for making a specific article open access, it will be published on that basis.
These journals are called "hybrid journals." There is a special DOAJ section for
authors that includes hybrid journals
(http://www.doaj.org/doaj?func=forAuthors).
11
NIH Public Access Policy
If you received funding from the National Institutes of Health for your research,
you will want to read the NIH Public Access Policy (http://publicaccess.nih.gov/)
for instructions on how to proceed with publishing your paper. The Publisher
Policies on NIH-Funded Authors
(http://oad.simmons.edu/oadwiki/Publisher_policies_on_NIH-funded_authors)
Wiki page can be used to determine how specific journals deal with journal
articles that must be published under that policy. The Journals That Submit All
NIH-Funded Final Published Articles to PubMed Central Web page
(http://publicaccess.nih.gov/submit_process_journals.htm) lists journals that will
submit your published article to NIH for you.
Digital Media Presentations
These digital media presentations are helpful in understanding author's rights
issues.
Author Rights, http://www.learningtimes.net/acrl_arrarchive.html (registration
required)
Author's Rights, http://blip.tv/file/743274/
Author's Rights, https://umconnect.umn.edu/umauthorsrights/
Web Pages
These Web pages provide additional useful information about author's rights.
Author Rights, http://www.arl.org/sc/authors/index.shtml
Authors' Rights and Copyrights, http://www.acrl.ala.org/scholcomm/node/8
Guide For Academics—Know Your Rights as an Author,
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/dis/disresearch/poc/pages/academicguide-r
ights.html
Resources for Authors, http://www.arl.org/sparc/author/index.shtml
12
Further Reading
If you would like to learn more about author rights issues, you may find these
freely available articles, e-prints, and reports to be helpful.
Bennett, Scott. "Author's Rights." The Journal of Electronic Publishing 5, no. 2
(1999). http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3336451.0005.203
Gadd, Elizabeth, Charles Oppenheim, and Steve Probets. "RoMEO Studies 2:
How Academics Want to Protect Their Open-Access Research Papers." Journal of
Information Science 29, no. 5 (2003): 333-356.
http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00001426/
———. "RoMEO Studies 3: How Academics Expect to Use Open-Access
Research Papers." Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 35, no. 3 (2003):
171-187. http://eprints.rclis.org/archive/00001427/
———. "RoMEO Studies 4: An Analysis of Journal Publishers' Copyright
Agreements." Learned Publishing 16, no. 4 (2003): 293-308.
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/alpsp/lp/2003/00000016/00000004/art000
09
Hirtle, Peter B. "Author Addenda: An Examination of Five Alternatives." D-Lib
Magazine 12, no. 11 (2006).
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/november06/hirtle/11hirtle.html
Hoorn, Esther, and Maurits van der Graaf. "Copyright Issues in Open Access
Research Journals: The Author's Perspective." D-Lib Magazine 12, no. 2 (2006).
http://www.dlib.org/dlib/february06/vandergraaf/02vandergraaf.html
Ober, John. "Facilitating Open Access: Developing Support for Author Control of
Copyright." College & Research Libraries News 67, no. 4 (April 2006)
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/publications/crlnews/2006/april06/facilit
atingopenaccess.cfm
Pappalardo, Kylie, Brian Fitzgerald, Anne Fitzgerald, Scott Kiel-Chisholm, Jenny
Georgiades, and Anthony Austin. Understanding Open Access in the Academic
Environment: A Guide for Authors. Brisbane, Australia: Open Access to Knowledge
Law Project, 2008. http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00013935/
13
Suber, Peter. "Balancing Author and Publisher Rights." SPARC Open Access
Newsletter, no. 110 (2007).
http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/newsletter/06-02-07.htm#balancing
Mailing List
If you have a serious interest in author's rights, you can apply to become a
member of the SPARC Author Rights Discussion Forum
(http://www.arl.org/sparc/media/08-0205.html).
Other Documents in the Tout de Suite Series
Institutional Repositories, Tout de Suite,
http://digital-scholarship.org/ts/irtoutsuite.pdf