Copyright - Publishing

Publication agreements

When you submit your work to a publisher, you will be asked to sign a publication agreement. Read it carefully. If it asks you to transfer your copyright to the publisher, you should make sure you understand what that means. If the transfer is not qualified in any way, it will mean that only the publisher will be able to reproduce, publish, communicate, perform or adapt the work. That means you will have to ask the publisher's permission to do any of these things. Always try to retain some rights of re-use for yourself. Alternatively, you could propose that you retain the copyright and give the publisher a licence to publish.

For staff members, please refer to the Intellectual Property Policy for details regarding copyright ownership of scholarly works, creative works and other educational resources created in the course of employment.

As a published author, you may need to obtain permission to re-use your work from your publisher or from an organisation external to the publisher such as RightsLink.

Can I re-use my work?

1. Check in the publisher agreement - e.g.: Sample Wiley Copyright Transfer Agreement (PDF, 125KB)

2. Check on the publisher website, look for author information - e.g.:Wiley Online Library

How do I obtain permission?

1. Go to the publisher website. Look in the author information or on the article. See example 1b above.
2. View the article online. Look for "rights and permissions" information - e.g.: Springer Nature
    

There is an agreement between STM Signatory Publishers that the permission will be granted without charge. This might be articulated in author information (see example 1b above).

The Australian Copyright Council website provides information sheets that give further advice on protecting and licensing copyright.

The Directory of Open Access Journals DOAJ has a search function which can identify quality open access journals that allow authors to retain their rights. You can also filter by journals that do not charge Author Processing Costs to publish Open Access.