Author's Rights:
Securing Future Uses of Your
Work
Sarah L. Shreeves
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Copyright Day – UW Parkside
April 16 2014
Research by Dayna Batemen https://www.flickr.com/photos/suttonhoo22/305806118/ (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

IANAL

Goals:
• Think through possible future use of your
work
• Understand limitations imposed by
contracts (copyright transfer agreements)
• Understand how to approach negotiating
to retain rights you want

In order to publish your work,
publishers need from you the
right to publish your work.
Usually publishers ask you to
transfer your copyright to them.
The work belongs to you until
Springer Bookshelf in Foyle’s Bookstore by Mark Hillary https://www.flickr.com/photos/markhillary/734889139/ (CC BY-2.0)

Why do we care?
(we being libraries)

new knowledge
promotion
tenure
reputation
profit
supporting organization
access to knowledge
access to knowledge
preservation
curriculum
research needs

wholesale transfer of rights
creates scarcity/monopoly
drives prices up (inelastic market)
Copyright

Why do we care?
(we being creators)

What do you want to do with your
work?
‐ Share with colleagues or practitioners
‐ Make it available to public (or be required
to under an institutional or funder policy)
‐ Use parts of it yourself, in future work
(including a dissertation)
‐ Prepare a textbook or other collected
volume of your work
‐ Others?
Veere Tools by Ard Hessellink https://www.flickr.com/photos/markhillary/734889139/ (CC BY-NC 2.0)

So…what rights does a
copyright holder have?
• Reproduction
• Distribution
• Derivatives
• Performance
• Public display
The right to license any of the above to third parties
Absolutely
necessary for
publishing
Arguably
necessary for
publishing (at
least a subset
of derivative
rights)
Mostly come
into play for
creative works

Some considerations in
academic works
• Joint authorship
• Power dynamics in joint authorship
• Who owns the work?

University of Wisconsin
System
http://www.uwsa.edu/fadmin/gapp/gapp27.htm#endnote1
It is the policy of the UW System that copyrightable
instructional materials developed under the
conditions identified in sections II.B.1. and 2. of
this policy paper belong solely to the author.
(There are some exceptions.)

In order to publish your work,
publishers need from you the
right to publish your work.
Usually publishers ask you to
transfer your copyright to them.
The work belongs to you until
Springer Bookshelf in Foyle’s Bookstore by Mark Hillary https://www.flickr.com/photos/markhillary/734889139/ (CC BY-2.0)

Do these agreements allow you:
• To reuse portions of your work in future
work
• To make available the publishers pdf
online
• To give others the right to reprint the work
in a larger collected volume

What rights remain to the
author?
3. Copyright Transfer. In consideration of
the action of the American Medical
Association (AMA) in reviewing and editing
this submission (manuscript, tables, and
figures), I hereby transfer, assign, or
otherwise convey all copyright ownership,
including any and all rights incidental
thereto, exclusively to the AMA, in the event
that such work is published by the AMA.

How to Negotiate
Mind the Gap by Pawel Loj https://www.flickr.com/photos/limaoscarjuliet/3305886294/ (CC BY 2.0)

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing!
– Understand what you want!
– Read the contract carefully.
– Contact the publisher about changes you
want.
– Amend the contract.

If the publisher still says no…
• Consider publishing your work elsewhere
where you can retain the rights you want.
• Publish your work as planned with the
original publisher.
The decision is entirely up to you.

“If…then” – the secrets of reuse
 By the author
• If full rights retained, then limitless (within
confines of law, that is)
• If some rights retained, then within limits of
negotiated rights
• If no rights retained, then fair use only
 By others
• If published open access, then freely accessible –
think about the scoped of an implied license
• If published under a Creative Commons license,
then within limits defined by the license
• If published traditionally, then fair use only

It’s your work.
Understand what you want
to do with your work.
Read your agreements with publishers.
Retain the rights you need.
Research by Dayna Batemen https://www.flickr.com/photos/suttonhoo22/305806118/ (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Contact Info / Attribution
Sarah Shreeves
IDEALS Coordinator
Scholarly Commons Co-Coordinator
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
sshreeve@illinois.edu
217-244-3877
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Slide 1 and 20: Research by Dayna Batemen https://www.flickr.com/photos/suttonhoo22/305806118/ (CC BY-NC-SA
2.0)
Slide 4 and 13: Springer Bookshelf in Foyle’s Bookstore by Mark Hillary https://
www.flickr.com/photos/markhillary/734889139/ (CC BY-2.0)
Slide 16: Veere Tools by Ard Hessellink https://www.flickr.com/photos/markhillary/734889139/ (CC BY-NC 2.0)
Slide 16: Mind the Gap by Pawel Loj https://www.flickr.com/photos/limaoscarjuliet/3305886294/ (CC BY 2.0)
Portions of the slides above originate from the Association of College and Research Libraries “Scholarly
Communication: From Understanding to Engagement” Roadshow series.
http://www.ala.org/acrl/issues/scholcomm/roadshow. Authors include Kevin Smith, Sarah Shreeves, Molly Keener,
Stephanie Davis-Kahl, and Joy Kirchner and are used under a CC BY License. All have been edited by Sarah
Shreeves on April 15, 2014.
This presentation is made available under a CC-BY-SA-NC license.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/. If you use the images in
this presentation, please provide appropriate attribution and respect the

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