Managing Your Rights
- Can you Recommend a Brief Multimedia Guide to Authors' Rights?
- Who is the Copyright Owner?
- What happens when I sign a Publisher’s Agreement?
- How do I protect my rights?
- What rights can I retain?
- How can I retain those rights?
Can you Recommend a Brief Multimedia Guide to Authors' Rights?
Yes, The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), and SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) have released a new, short video to help librarians effectively engage disciplinary faculty and researchers on the topic of author rights.
Who is the Copyright Owner?
The author is the first owner of copyright. The author is either the creator of the work or the person that employs someone to create the work. Many authors do not retain their copyright ownership; they sell or transfer it to someone else in return for a lump sum payment or periodic payment known as a royalty. In this way, the author and copyright owner (sometimes referred to as "copyright claimant") may be two different people. (Stanford)
What happens when I sign a Publisher’s Agreement?
You may unknowingly sign away all your personal rights, including Fair Use! This means you may have to request permission to:
- Use your own works for a course pack;
- Store a copy on your web site;
- Distribute a copy to colleagues.
How do I protect my rights?
- Explicitly retain ownership of your content.
- Transfer only some of your rights to the publisher.
What rights can I retain?
- The 5 Basic Rights in connection to any personal, professional or non-profit educational activities.
- Transfer only some of your rights to the publisher.
How can I retain those rights?
- Only sign a publishing agreement after you read and understand the content.
- Talk to your publisher about granting only those rights needed for their publication.
- Try to keep all other rights, specifying those of particular value to you or your institution.
- SPARC Author’s Addendum: This is an author's addendum that was developed by Michael Carroll of the Villanova University School of Law.
- Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis has two addenda available:
- Addendum A: Spells out specific rights retained by the author.
- Addendum B: Describes in general terms the rights retained by the author and the author’s home institution.