Author Rights and Copyright: Author Rights

Authors retain copyright of their work as soon as the work is in a fixed, tangible medium. Copyright is a bundle of various rights that allows the holder to retain ownership and rights as to the use, dissemination, display, and modification of the work in digital or print format in connection with academic and professional activities. Some of these rights include:

• use part of the work as a basis for a future publication
• send copies of the work to colleagues
• 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
• self-archive the work in an institutional repository
• use graphs, charts, and statistical data for a future publication
• post the work on a laboratory or institutional web site on a restricted or publicly available network
• 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

Under the traditional academic publication model an author typically transfers all ownership and rights to a publisher. If an author relinquishes all their rights under this model, they significantly decrease their ability to control their work and have no further rights to use the work without permission from the publisher. Advances in digital technology have allowed for new ways of dissemination with many publishers offering authors options for management of their copyright with very flexible use conditions that meet the needs of both parties. No longer do authors have to transfer all their rights in a single bundle in exchange for publication.

Many publishers grant authors certain rights up front and there is a wide range of what rights are allowed including stipulations for use. Some publishers allow for unrestricted dissemination of the work to colleagues, unlimited copies for personal use, posting of the final published version on an institutional web site or subject repository, use a graph or chart for a future work, to comply with public access mandates, to name a few. However, these rights may come with stipulations for use which vary among publishers. Some publishers will allow authors to use only the post-print version and not the publisher’s final version, with instructions to link the post-print version to the publisher’s final version. Other stipulations include noting the Digital Object Identifier number (DOI) to the final published version of the work, adding a statement as provided by the publisher, an embargo period before an author can reuse the work, a limit on the number of times a work can be sent to colleagues, a limit on the number of copies that can be made for classroom use, to name a few.