Copyright law in the United States is complicated, but generally speaking the author of a creative work, including scholarly writing, holds the copyright on it. The copyright holder can assign the copyright to another individual or entity. Typically, publishers of subscription-based journals and scholarly books require authors to sign their copyright over to the publisher -- giving the publisher the exclusive right to distribute the work. As the author of the work, the agreement you sign with your publisher may or may not let you retain certain rights, such as the right to distribute copies of the work to other individuals or the right to distribute earlier versions of the work. SPARC created an excellent know-your-rights primer for academic authors.

Copyright law is quite restrictive about how work can be used by default, but the copyright holder also has the right to distribute their work with a more permissive set of conditions. These conditions are known as a license. Open Access work is often distributed with a license that allows for unlimited distribution and reuse; this is one facet of openness. If you publish your work OA with a publisher or in a repository, you will likely be offered one or more Creative Commons license options.

What are my options if I don't want to sign over my copyright to a publisher?

One tactic that organizations including SPARC and cOAlition S advocate is to add an addendum when you return the publisher's agreement that indicates that you retain the copyright to your work. Unfortunately, there is nothing to stop the publisher from rejecting the addendum. If that happens, check out other ways to share your work Open Access that typically allow you to retain copyright.

For general information about copyright and intellectual property, including reusing the work of others in classes and research, see the library's guide to Copyright and Intellectual Property.

Still have questions? Contact a librarian using the information in the sidebar.

Creative Commons (CC) is "an international nonprofit organization that empowers people to grow and sustain the thriving commons of shared knowledge and culture." To advance this mission, CC has developed a series of licenses that allow authors to distribute their work openly with a clear, shared understanding of rights and responsibilities. The most common CC license is CC BY, which allows for free sharing and reuse for any purpose, including commercial, as long as the original work and author are attributed.

Creative Commons Licenses

This section is copied from https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/, where it is distributed under a CC-BY-4.0 license.

There are six different license types, listed from most to least permissive here:

CC BY: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.

CC BY includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator

 

CC BY-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.

CC BY-SA includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
SA – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms

 

CC BY-NC: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. 

It includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
NC – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted

 

CC BY-NC-SA: This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms. 

CC BY-NC-SA includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
NC – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
SA – Adaptations must be shared under the same terms

 

CC BY-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. 

CC BY-ND includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
ND – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted

 

 

CC BY-NC-ND: This license allows reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. 

CC BY-NC-ND includes the following elements:
BY – Credit must be given to the creator
NC – Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted
ND – No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted