Scholarly Publishing

When you publish in a journal, you don’t automatically retain the rights to your work. Most publishers require you to transfer your copyright to them, which means you may lose control over how your article is shared or reused—even by you. To protect your rights, it’s essential to carefully review the publisher’s copyright agreement and negotiate to retain key rights whenever possible.

Before signing any transfer agreements, authors are encouraged to negotiate with the publishers to retain certain rights: 

1. Right to Reproduce

   e.g., make physical or digital copies of a work for colleagues, students, or others

2. Right to Distribute

   ​​e.g., distribute physical or digital copies of a work to colleagues, students, or at conferences

3. Right to Prepare Derivative Works

   e.g. prepare subsequent works such as an article, a chapter, or a book that builds upon the publication 

4. Right to Display Publicly (related to artistic works)

   e.g. show photos, exhibits, and figures from a work in the classroom 

5. Right to deposit a digital copy in an institutional repository or funding agency repository.

Developed by SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) in partnership with Creative Commons and Science Commons, the SPARC Author Addendum is a legal instrument that modifies the publisher’s agreement and allows you to keep key rights to your articles.

How to use the SPARC Author Addendum:

1. Complete the addendum.
2. Print a copy of the addendum and attach it to your publishing agreement.
3. Note in a cover letter to your publisher that you have included an addendum to the agreement.
4. Mail the addendum with your publishing agreement and a cover letter to your publisher.

One way to retain control over your work is to publish open access using a Creative Commons (CC) licence. These licences clearly communicate how others can use your work while ensuring you receive credit as the author.

According to Copyrightalliance.org, a Creative Commons licence is issued by the copyright owner to allow anyone anywhere to use a work in certain specified ways without having to ask for permission. 

There are four components to the licences: 

• BY - attribution required 
• NC - no commercial use 
• ND - no derivative works 
• SA - Share Alike - the license must be the same on any derivative works.

The followings are the types of CC Licences: 

• Creative Commons Licence Chooser - Use this tool to select the appropriate licence for your work.