Copyright Management for Authors
Copyright management for authors—An essential component of scholar’s leveraging their presence vis-à-vis the publishing trade is to request retention for their rights as authors. In practice this means that authors should negotiate with publishers to ensure that they retain the right to post their own materials to their own institution’s web site, or to those specifically dedicated to their discipline.
- Chronicle article (interview with Kevin Smith of Duke)
The article offers a concise review of copyright in relation to retention of author’s rights, and how this plays out on several US campuses.
- SPARC Addendum
Produced under the auspices of the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition this document aims to facilitate the process of authors’ retention of copyright privileges. The addendum was drawn up by a legal team so as to modify the terms of publishers contracts in favor of the author. The terms of the agreement are relatively simple and straightforward, and have been successfully executed by hundreds of scholars in retaining their rights as authors.
- Science Commons Addendum
This is an example of another amendment tool authors can employ to retain their rights when assigning copyright to a publisher.
- Sherpa/Romeo (identifying specific policies by journal and publisher)
The acronym is obscure, but the site has a clear and useful function. Sherpa/Romeo serves as a clearinghouse on detailing publisher’s policies concerning self archiving. The site’s editors maintain a color coded guide indicating the degree of restrictiveness or liberality of individual publisher’s policies. The list of publishers is not comprehensive, but does feature a very broad array of scholarly publishers especially within the scientific community.
