Copyright and Author Rights

When an author (or creator) writes an article for a scholarly journal, a chapter for a book, a monograph, or other work, they are typically asked to sign a publication agreement or a copyright transfer agreement. 
These agreements can be negotiable, and you as the creator can retain some specific rights. A few examples of these are:

• include articles in course packs
• place articles on a personal web site
• archive in an institutional repository like Digital Scholarship@UNLV

Publishers may not always want to negotiate their default copyright transfer agreement, and your request to maintain some or all rights to your work may be declined.

Depending on the journal, the author may:

• retain copyright ownership and be asked to grant a non-exclusive license to the publisher, typically for the right of first formal publication or
• publish open access, which generally allows the author to retain copyright ownership for their work. To learn more about publishing open access, visit the Open Access guide.

Your copyright transfer agreement is the ultimate source of information regarding your publication, but some information on publisher policies, particularly in regard to re-posting and sharing your work online, can be found on the Sherpa Romeo journal policies database.

A copyright addendum helps authors ask for certain rights for their own works. Try using these when preparing to sign a copyright transfer agreement.

• SPARC Author Addendum to Publication Agreement: This document includes author retention of rights; publisher commitments; and prior license acknowledgements. Fill out the agreement form; attach it with your post-print, and email to the publisher.
  • Author Rights: Using the SPARC Author Addendum: This is a brochure that provides additional help and explanation for using the amendment
• Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine: Helps you generate a PDF form you can attach to a journal publisher's copyright agreement requesting to retain specific rights.