Research Guides: Author's Rights Retention Kit by Ann Viera & Peter Fernandez: Author's Rights Retention Kit

Attention Authors!

The publication process fails to serve the needs of an inattentive author.

In order to manage their copyright assets throughout the process it is vital that authors read and understand the agreements that they sign. Authors should think about both current needs and future uses of their works and be certain that they retain rights sufficient to accommodate those needs.

- From Copyright and authors' rights: A Briefing paper

Retain the Rights You Need

Publishers require only the author’s permission to publish an article, not a wholesale transfer of copyright.

Use Sherpa/Romeo to quickly find publishers' policies when deciding where to publish and what rights you'll need to negotiate.

Use the DOAJ white listg and Think Check Submit to make informed decisions about where to publish based on publishers' policies.

Use the Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine to generate a cusomized addendum to your publisher's contract, reserving the rights you need.

Toll Access publishers’ contracts restrict an author's use of published work in teaching and research. Contracts may prohibit placing the final version publisher's pdf

on course websites
in a course-pack
in scholarly presentations
on the author’s personal web page
and in digital archives like UTK's TRACE

Some publishers anticipate an author's legitimate need to distribute and repurpose his/her work and no longer require exclusive rights to publication.

About embargos: Some publishers balance their interest in recouping publishing costs with the author’s desire to disseminate their ideas broadly, placing an embargo, usually 6-12 months, on the author's ability to place the publisher's pdf in a digital archive.

More info: http://libguides.utk.edu/scholarlypublishing

Author-friendly publisher's Copyright Transfer Agreements allow authors to:

• make the work accessible in Trace or another digital repository
• use part of the work as a basis for a future publication
• send copies of the work to colleagues
• share copies of the work with students
• comply with the NIH Public Access Policy or other funding agency policies
• present the work at conference or meeting and give copies of the work to attendees
• use a different or extended version of the work for a future publication
• make copies of the work for personal use and educational use
• use graphs, charts, and statistical data for a future publication
• use the work for educational use such as lecture notes or study guides
• comply with public access mandates
• deposit supplemental data from the work in an institutional or subject repository
• place a copy of the work on electronic reserves or use for student course-packs
• include the work in future derivative works
• make an oral presentation of the work
• include the work in a dissertation or thesis
• use the work in a compilation of works or collected works
• expand the work into a book form or book chapter
• retain patent and trademark rights of processes or procedures contained in the work