Information for SBU authors
Why retain rights?
- Many publishers create significant barriers for authors who want to reuse or share their work, and for access to that work by others. Negotiating changes to standard publisher agreements can help authors avoid these obstacles, thus increasing options for authors as well as readership, citation, and impact of the work itself.
- Publishers routinely change the agreements they ask authors to sign. If you have not secured rights you want as an author, the publisher may alter its practices over time.
- Some research funders request or require that work created with their funds be made available openly on the web.
Which rights to retain?
- SBU authors are often most interested in retaining rights to:
- Reuse their work in teaching, future publications, and in all scholarly and professional activities.
- Post their work on the web (sometimes referred to as “self-archiving”) e.g. in Academic Commons, SBU’s research repository; in a discipline archive (such as arXiv; or on a web page.
How to retain rights?
- Authors should specify the rights they want to retain, as most publishers do not extend these rights to authors in their standard agreements.
- One simple way to retain rights is to use the Copyright Amendment Form.
- This form enables authors to continue using their publications in their academic work; to deposit them into SBU Academic Commons; and to deposit them into any discipline-based research repository (including PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine’s database for NIH-funded manuscripts).
Which publishers are likely to be flexible about these rights?
- Publisher policies and agreements are usually linked from the author information or article submission section of a journal’s website.
- Publisher policies change over time, and the terms stated on their websites often vary from the terms of their actual agreements, so it is important to read the agreement itself.
Additional Resources About Author's Rights.
- Author’s Rights and the SPARC Author’s Addendum https://sparcopen.org/our-work/author-rights/
- Creative Commons licenses https://creativecommons.org/cc-licenses/
- Jisc for Open Policy Finder. https://openpolicyfinder.jisc.ac.uk/
- Copyright: A research guide of information and resources. https://guides.library.stonybrook.edu/copyright
some content by Ellen Duranceau / CC BY SA