This guide is designed to share information on copyright and fair use. This guide does not supply legal advice, nor is it intended to replace the advice of legal counsel.
Publication Permissions
You are the copyright holder of the works you create, if you decide to publish your work you will be asked to agree to the publisher's publication agreement. In order to publish your work, the publisher must have permission. When you sign the publisher's agreement you may be asked to transfer your copyright to the publishing entity. If you agree to transfer your copyright, you are agreeing to hand over your rights to your work to the publisher in a legally binding contract.
Retaining Your Rights
Copyright gives creators (or rights holders) four specific rights, copyright owners have the right to control:
As the owner of the copyright for your work, you can give anyone permission to use your work, this includes granting publishers the right to reproduce and distribute your work. The publisher does not need to own the copyright for your work to publish it.
Negotiating Copyright
Before signing a publisher's agreement, you can request changes to the agreement. The University of Texas Libraries provides a guide for Negotiating with Publishers. Before beginning your negotiation, it is important to consider what you want to be able to do with your work and the level of rights you want to retain.
Types of Copyright Agreements
While publishing contracts can appear in several variations, there are three common copyright agreements. The Kernochan Center for Law, Media, and the Arts at Columbia Law School provides a guide to copyright clauses in publisher agreements that includes samples of agreements explained in plain English and rated by friendliness towards the work’s creator.
Transfer of Copyright
Often called an "assignment of copyright" in contracts, a transfer of copyright is the least author-friendly type of publishing agreement as the complete copyright is transferred to the publisher, and the author retains no rights. If you sign a full transfer of copyright, you will have no more rights to your work than you would to any other work in copyright.
Transfer of Copyright, but Author Retains Certain Rights
This type of agreement is more friendly to authors because it allows them to retain certain rights even though the copyright is transferred to the publisher. The rights retained by the author should be spelled out explicitly in the terms of the agreement. It is particularly important to read these types of agreements carefully to make sure that you understand which rights you will retain, and which you will lose.
Author Retains Copyright and Grants a License to the Publisher
Agreements that allow the author to retain copyright are generally the most author-friendly type of publication contract. Under these types of agreements, authors grant publishers a non-exclusive license to publish the work.
Adapted from Author's Rights & Copyright, West Virginia University Libraries, https://libguides.wvu.edu/authorsrights.
Additional Resources