Before agreeing to publisher your with a subscription/for-profit publisher, it is important to understand how your copyright is protected and maintained. When publishing with traditional publishing bodies you will be asked to sign a publishing agreement, a legal contract that transfers the rights to your work to the publisher.
For this activity, review the two examples of publisher agreements below and consider the following:
- As the author, what rights do you maintain to your work
- As the publisher, what rights do they receive upon signing the agreement
Complete this Activity
In the comments below, write a brief insight into what you learned about the rights of the author and publisher. Are there any questions and thoughts you had about your own publishing practices as you reviewed the agreement?
Challenge Cover Image Credit: FreeVector.com
Looks like publishers basically get everything and then will allow the author to ‘license back’ some rights, possibly to self-archive, maybe reuse a non-final version via separate agreement, send final version copies to colleagues, re-use the work in other publications, use for teaching, use for oral presentations, or use/re-use of abstracts, figures, data, etc.
It very much feels like the author did all of the work and the publisher gets all the say and power, in a way. Even for the open access journals where the author pays the APC, the steep prices on many journals helps paint the author into a corner where they may feel like they have no choice in how they publish. I imagine that’s amplified where discussions of tenure and having employment at all come into consideration.
I’m definitely going to be paying much closer attention to publishing agreements I see in future, and I might even try attempting to negotiate more with the publisher. Probably can’t hurt, I’d hope.
I compared Elsevier’s publishing agreement with that of IEEE Open Access. Reading the IEEE Open Access’ terms, I was dismayed to see that they expect an assignment of copyright; when I saw ‘open access’ in the title, I (naively?) thought they would perhaps just require a license, but that was not the case. In fact, Elsevier’s and IEE Open Access’ terms were virtually the same when it came to author rights. Author rights aside, while I am committed to open scholarship, I would find myself in a pickle if weighing these too agreements. I do not have access to considerable funds to conduct my research, so having to pay an APC would be a real barrier to me publishing in an open access journal.
Elsevier’s and Wiley-Blackwell’s agreements are very comparable in the rights that are passed over to the publisher and what they permit the author to maintain. Essentially all copyright is retained by the publisher as long as the article is accepted. Authors generally maintain rights to the pre-print, but not for the published article – which they are able to share with others under strict circumstances (i.e. self-archiving, instructional purposes, scholarly sharing). What I found most interesting was how many rules the publishers impose on authors sharing their own pre-prints (i.e. linking back to the published article, labelling the pre-print as such). If I were ever in a position to publish, I would definitely attempt negotiating to maintain some more rights.
Author has rights on post- print; the agreement assigns to the publisher exclusive rights on Published -version. Embargo period is 12 months.
Restrictions on the Author to share published -version with others outside of their own institution. Comprehensive protection for the publisher. Restraints to the author on published- version to publish on open access. There is ambiguity in the agreement on authors’ rights, it is not a full protection for the authors, and could cause conflicting interests.
The agreement certainly adds lots of liabilities on the authors than the publishers. I would be very cautious when come to this agreement.
I shared Daisy’s reaction to IEEE’s “Open Access” publication agreement. I think it’s extremely misleading, if not outright dishonest, for them to use the OA label in this context, given that they receive copyright. It’s also not clear under what, if any, license the article would be published. The agreement makes reference to Creative Commons licenses, but in a way that suggests that not all of their “OA” articles are licensed in this manner. Presumably the articles are at least free to read, otherwise I don’t’ see how they would qualify as OA even in the weakest respect. That said, it does look like authors can post the published version on personal websites or in an institutional repository, provided they cite the version of record and link to it with a DOI.
The Elsevier agreement seems like a pretty standard publication contract for a commercial publisher. Copyright goes to Elsevier, and the author can share a preprint anytime and an accepted manuscript upon publication on a personal website, or after an embargo in a non-profit repository.
The two agreements are fairly similar, despite IEEE’s allegedly being for an OA publication. The only advantage that I can discern for authors with IEEE’s is the ability to share the version of record openly, which should be the case for an OA publication. If I were publishing with IEEE, I couldn’t help but ask on what grounds they consider this OA, and I would ask for clarification regarding their use of Creative Commons licenses. In the case of Elsevier, I would ask to be able to deposit the Accepted Manuscript in a repository at the time of publication, rather than after an embargo period.
I chose IEEE Open Access Publishing and Taylor and Francis Publishing. IEEE was misleading as many have said. Though it does allow the author to do what they like with their own work, like teach, etc., it still charges APCs and takes copyright, as well as gets the right to “unlimited, worldwide, irrevocable right to use his/her name, picture, likeness, voice and biographical information as part of the advertisement, distribution and sale of products incorporating the Work”, which kind of scares me. Taylor and Francis allows the author to use it later in ways like teaching and sharing with colleagues, as well, but they also take full copyright of it, and actually anything that comes from it or uses it to become developed in the future, in any form of media. (there go the movie rights I guess!). In the future, I will make sure that these documents are read in detail to protect my rights and the rights of other authors, because they are clearly in favor of the publisher, which I guess is not that surprising.
I chose to review the Elsevier and Wiley-Blackwell agreements for my review and they read very similarly in terms of what rights the author is giving up when publishing traditionally. After reviewing the author’s rights module, the terms of the agreements weren’t surprising but as others have said, I thought both agreements to be extremely restrictive in terms of what the author is able to do with their own work following publication.
I found the Wiley-Blackwell agreement to be a bit clearer in its definitions of what the author can and cannot do with various versions while Elsevier was more lenient with restrictions in the ‘accepted’ version of the article. However, both are clear in restricting access to the general public as much as possible (intranets only, versions for students require logins, etc.). Only the pre-print versions would come close to being considerable accessible in any way.
It’s clear that the publishers place value almost entirely on the formatted, peer-reviewed version and that was my experience as a student using these papers as well. Instructors were certainly hesitant in letting students use pre-prints from repositories regardless of the similarity in content to the published article. I’m sure this encourages much less circulation of knowledge. I also think that the language of these agreements would be confusing for new authors or those unfamiliar with publishing as they may not know to negotiate, which makes agreeing to restrictive publisher terms much more likely. I’ve learned how important it is to be meticulous in reviewing these agreements and to challenge language where necessary to protect the author rights.
For this activity, I compared Taylor and Francis'(T&F) agreement with that of Wiley-Blackwell’s (W-B). For both publishers, authors assign the copyright for their works to the publisher. In the case of T&F, the assignment of copyright extends to their offices worldwide and in all forms of media in which the contents of the article may be reproduced. On the contrary, the authors in both agreements retained more rights than I expected. Both publishers allowed authors to retain copyright over their preprint works, to self-archive, and to make copies for educational purposes/share with colleague. W-B even give the author the right to make oral presentations with this work. Nevertheless, this activity is a reminder to carefully right publishing agreements.
I compared the Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Agreement with the IEEE Open Access Publishing Agreement. I agree with earlier comments, finding that there are clauses in IEEE that I would not have expected had I not read the terms, such as the inclusion of the Article Processing Charge. I found the Wiley-Blackwell document clear, especially the “permitted uses by the contributor,” which includes uses specific to the submitted, accepted, and final published version.
Approaching these agreements from the perspective of someone who is not expected to publish as a requirement of my employment, it is easy to come to the conclusion that they are patently unfair to authors. My gut reaction is that, were I in the position of having to sign over the bulk of my copyright to a publisher, I would take umbrage with the power dynamic. Is the prestige, promotion, and visibility of publishing in certain journals or with certain publishers worth giving up the lion’s share of my rights? Recognizing that this is purely a hypothetical thought exercise, the idealist in me still hopes that were I to find myself in that situation that I would not be swayed by lure of prestige. It’s also entirely possible that my teenage preoccupations with underground bands who became popular and whether they had “sold-out” is subconsciously informing my reactions…
I reviewed Elsevier and Taylor & Francis. It is worth saying that, unsurprisingly, both companies ask authors to assign the copyright to the companies.
Nevertheless, both companies emphasize different aspects in their contracts. For example, while Elsevier says that “The Author Rights include the right to use the Preprint, Accepted Manuscript and the Published Journal Article for Personal Use, Internal Institutional Use and for Scholarly Sharing,” Taylor and Francis are way more explicit in discussing the author’s rights, including information on how they can publish manuscripts in personal websites or institutional repositories.
In general, Elsevier is particular about authors’ obligations towards them, while Taylor & Francis very clearly outline authors’ rights in the publications (while still complying with traditional academic publishing logics).
Hello,
I reviewed the Taylor and Francis Agreement. I believe this is a Gold standard agreement, as eventually the author can pay an APC to make the article open access.
After this payment the author regains the rights to the article.
This agreement requires transfer of copyright for the item, by the primary author. The publisher will own all the content including data, tables and so on. This does not allow the author to re-publish the article anywhere else in the world.
This is a very clear document as it sets out the author’s rights systematically with numerical bullets.
It allows the author to post their original document (preprint). There may be a time embargo before the non final version may be posted in an institutional repository.
The author can post the final version digitally, after peer review and editing, on personal or departmental website with proper attribution and citation information.
The article may be copied for use in class by students. it may also be shared with colleagues. The author still has the right to expand the article into a book format or re-use the article in a book (with permission and acknowledgments).
The second agreement I looked at is Wiley Blackwell. This agreement looked similar to the above in that it requires complete transfer of copyright. It allows linking to the initial article and sharing with colleagues. The initial version may be posted on intranet, author website or institutional website.
Author can copy the final version for educational/teaching/presentations and for colleagues. Can re-use half in another publication.
The main difference between the agreements was that Wiley had no option for Open Access or return of copyright, therefore not a Gold standard.
Sorry, I forgot to add that I would choose the T&F agreement over Wiley as it has option for open access and returning copyright.
However, I do not know how much the APC would be and if I could afford it. Hopefully, this cost should be covered by institution or granting body.
I too chose the IEEE Open Access publishing agreement thinking there would be contrasting details that might make it the more appealing option, but was very surprised to learn that anyone publishing with them are getting basically the same agreement as they would when signing with one of the major publishers.
I immediately noticed (and it made me chuckle) that when I opened the SAGE publishing agreement that the tab simply read “TRANSFER OF COPYRIGHT” giving the author no false hopes about what they are getting into.
In both agreements, the author retains the right to link to a copy of their work and to use it in their work. It ultimately allows the author the ability to share that they have published, as long as they don’t post the full-text (in the case of SAGE) on any repository not approved or without the copyright mark (such as with IEEE).
The language in both of these agreements is very technical and could be confusing for some people who are looking to publish, which is a barrier for some people.
Not surprisingly, the agreements are very friendly towards the publisher and less so towards the author. As with any legal document, I think the big takeaway is to find an attorney who is familiar with these kinds of agreements and can advise you as to which parts are negotiable and which are not, and for the negotiable parts, what terms and conditions are reasonable (vs. the boilerplate language).
I looked at Elsevier and Sage publishers. Both show similar formats with exclusive copyrights for publishers. Hence, permission needs to be obtained from the publisher if the material needs to be reused or published at a personal website. Compared to Elsevier Sage does seem to provide greater clarification of contributors’ rights.
Overall the language used is too technical and need to be reviewed carefully to understand.
I took a look at Elsevier and Taylor & Francis’s publisher agreements. Both require the author to give up their copyright to the publisher (although, Taylor & Francis make an exception for government agents), while granting the author certain rights to distribute for personal use and create derivative works. Taylor & Francis’s agreement contains more detail as to what specifically is an author right (e.g. what version can be posted on personal websites and share), while Elsevier includes a list of definitions with fewer details. Although the exceptions are thorough enough to cover most rights than an author would want to retain, I still find that having to transfer their copyright entirely puts authors in a vulnerable position where they lose control of their work and its distribution.
I looked at Elsevier’s and Wiley-Blackwell’s agreements, which I find are very similar in the rights that are passed to the publisher and maintained by the author. Circulation of published articles is very restricted: they can only share the article for purposes such as instructional, scholarly sharing etc. I would feel limited in how I can share my work through these agreements as avenues for circulation are very limited in the agreement.
I chose both the IEEE and Taylor & Francis for this assignment. Both agreements allow for classroom and conference use which would be useful if the content creator is an instructor or a presenting researcher. A notable difference is that IEEE would retain irrevocable rights to use the “name, picture, likeness, voice and biographical information” of the author in order to advertise the work which intrudes on the personal side of the transaction for the content creator. Both agreements do entail that the author sign over the copyright to the publisher while absolving the publisher of fault should any issues arise. As a researcher I would be hesitant to give away rights to publishers given their reign over the control of your work.
I read both Wiley-Blackwell and IEEE publishing agreements.
For Wiley-Blackwell, authors will retain all proprietary rights (e.g. patent rights) other than copyright. Besides, during any future distribution or use of the final publication in whole or in part in any medium, a citation is required to give appropriate credit to the publisher (i.e. the Wiley-Blackwell) together with other sponsors, if applicable. Publishers, on the other hand, retain all the copyright for the publication, which means they can distribute and use the publication in all media and languages.
For IEEE, similarly, the copyright will be transferred from authors or employers (if the publication is within the scope of the employment) to the publisher. Authors, employers (if applicable), and other associated finding agencies may have appropriate reuse of the publication.
In my experience reading licenses provided by publishers for transformative licenses and publisher agreements for Gold OA journals, I am always surprised by the lowest level of ownership they provide the author through copyright. I had the same reaction after reading the IEEE agreement, and agree with all the other comments above, that the license is extremely misleading and at a detriment to the author. I also read through the T&F agreement and found that in both cases, the publisher maintains all ownership of the research.
I compared the Willey-Blackburn and Taylor and Francis.
For the Wiley-Blackburn agreement basically gives the publisher full copyright over the article during the term and any subsequent extensions to the copyright. This includes republishing, transmitting, selling, distribution around the world and in any language!
Wiley-Blackburn licenses back to the author the following for the submitted version – self archiving on author’s personal or institutional intranet page/repository but once the article is published, they must include a link back to the Wiley-Blackburn site. Once the article is accepted, Wiley-Blackburn license back the ability to send copies to colleagues but only on specific request and that there is no systematic distribution. Any wide dissemination must first be requested through the publishing office. Up to half the article content can be reused in other publication except academic journals and can also be used in course packs, e-reserves, presentation at professional conferences, in-house training, or distance learning and oral presentations. It cannot be used in any commercial venue even for teaching purposes.
I found this agreement to be very wordy and full of legal jargon. An author would need to really read it carefully to fully see what they are agreeing to. It is however, clearly broken down into the various areas and timelines. In comparison, in reviewing the Taylor and Francis agreement, I found it to be short and sweet! It also takes over the copyright to the article, noting that the author gives them the “Full title guarantee all rights of copyright and related publishing rights in my article, in all forms and all
media”. However, despite this, I felt that the Taylor and Francis agreement did allow a little, and I mean little more flexibility in the uses of the article by the author.
This exercise taught me that it is very important to read the small print and that there are differences, albeit small, between the agreements in relation to the use of the article post publication. It also taught me how restrictive this model of publishing is and how the system has lead to inequalities and the for profit models discussed in the module.
I looked into the Elsevier Journal Publishing Agreement and the Sage Journal Contributor Publishing Agreement. I noticed there is such a strong emphasis on whether you are a government employee or contractor in both agreements, but only Sage contains a clause that describes why addressing this is important. It is also interesting how both agreements only recognizes the countries in the British Commonwealth (Canada, Australia, and UK) and puts all other countries as “Other” which suggests Western superiority. I wonder how submitting a contribution report such as describing the roles and contributions of each member to the final manuscript would change or influence the author ownership from the perspective of the publishers, if any.
I reviewed the Elsevier and Wiley Blackwell agreements and I found them quite overwhelming. I’m still not clear what the concept of Scholarly Sharing implies. I’m also not sure what the limits truly are when a phrase uses the caveat “including but not limited to”.
The two for profit publisher’s agreements I investigated are:
1. IEEE Open Access Publishing Agreement
2. Elsevier Journal Publishing Agreement
I am curious of these agreements because of Daisy’s comments above – that even in a “OA” publishing agreement have copyright transfer requests. Ah? In addition, the agreements read from a position of power to an underling. Sorry that does it for me. If at all possible I would not publish in these journals and feel the academic community needs to focus more on true OA such as the IRRODL journal sponsored by Athabasca University. Because of these outdated practices of “for profit” journals, I see OA being more prestigious in the future. Already IRRODL is gaining prestige because of the diverse views.
For this activity I compared the publisher agreements from Taylor & Francis and Sage. The legalese is pretty dense in some parts but they do seem to be similar in many respects. This is what I understood:
Authors sign the rights to the work over to both publishers, who will then essentially have full control over the (published) work. However, authors do keep the rights to the pre-print and post-print versions and may post them in a repository, potentially needing to respect an embargo period. An APC can be paid in order to get the work published OA, in T&F’s case they explicitly state that the rights would then return back to the author. For both publishers authors may make copies for educational purposes as well as include the publisher’s version in a book/collection of the author’s works.
I looked into how much money the APC actually costs, for the most part Sage charges $3000 USD (a few Sage journals have different prices, some higher, some lower). The fee for T&F must be calculated separately for each journal; the cost for the few I tried varied between $2885 USD and $3085 USD.
These agreements highlight the importance of thoroughly reading and understanding them before signing it so that one knows what they’re getting into.
Largely, the two agreements I reviewed (Elsevier and T&F) were what I expected – assignment of copyright to the publisher. However, there were some surprises in the agreements I reviewed. I was surprised that author rights in the Elsevier agreement included the right to share the published version of the article in their institution’s learning management system, in a coursepack or via paper copies for teaching purposes. That said, an instructor may potentially be able to do so regardless under fair dealing (depending on the situation). The Taylor and Francis agreement was more restrictive in this regard, specifying the author could distribute paper copies to students. The Elsevier agreement was also more accessible in that definitions of terms were provided. The variations in the agreements was a good reminder that it is important to keep a record of the terms you agree to when submitting to journals.
Writing from the perspective of someone who works in publishing, I wonder how publishers can enhance authors’ understanding of their agreements. Reading such documents seems comfortable to me, but that’s because I’ve had to do it over and over for years! Sometimes authors ask me questions regarding something that was explained in their agreement, which makes me wonder if they understood the agreement fully before they signed it (or they might just have forgotten a detail if it’s been a few months, that’s to be expected!). One can’t really annotate or editorialize an agreement too much because such comments might undermine the specifics of the contract. Beyond clearly telling an author that they’re most welcome to ask questions, what can publishers do to make it easier? Are there any free resources that can help authors to determine if they like the terms of their contract and what to ask their publisher?
I read the agreements from Sage and Taylor & Francis. Reviewing both these agreements, it is feels that not only does the publisher publicize the article, but it in facts takes ownership of the piece and the author (also the creator) is only able to reference their work with acknowledgement of the publisher. The Sage Agreement states, “When posting or re-using the Contribution, please provide a link to the appropriate DOI for the published version of the Contribution on SAGE Journals (http://online.SAGEpub.com).” Essentially, the creator must provide information so that people can go to the published work. It feels as though the publisher is seen as the “origin” of the piece of work and people should go directly to view it on their website. Whereas, the actual creator- who the work originates from- hands over their rights to the publisher.
I reviewed agreements from Sage and Taylor and Francis. From both of these agreements, publishers essentially take ownership of the authors work, despite them being the ones who created it. The Sage agreement states, “When posting or re-using the Contribution, please provide a link to the appropriate DOI for the published version of the Contribution on SAGE Journals (http://online.SAGEpub.com).” Essentially, people need to be able to view the article from the publisher as it “originates” here, and this is the original source. Except, the author is actually the original “source” but still has to abide by the rules of the organization that publicizes and outsources fact check of the work.
I reviewed the Elsevier and Wiley publishing agreements. I was somewhat surprised that the Wiley agreement seemed to be even more strict than Elsevier considering that Elsevier does not have the best of reputations. I was happy to see that we can distribute copies of the published articles to colleagues and also use them in teaching material. Elsevier also mention being able to put things in a preprint archive but Wiley had no such mention so I assume it is not allowed. I must admit that I haven’t really taken the time to read over these agreements when I’ve published in the past but I will now definitely be more aware.
There is no free lunch! As the author what exactly are you expecting with your publication? The response leads to another question: what are you willing to pay for it? Your time, your efforts, your rights? Publishers are abusive on their agreements, definitely, but advocating for your rights, knowing exactly what you want, is the key. There are so many pathways but none of them are free.
I reviewed the SAGE and Wiley publishing agreements where both clearly outline that ownership to the Work is given to the publishers. Though the originator of the work is the author, I believe it completely fair to relinquish rights/ownership to publishers as they act as gatekeepers and can verify the work for its reference by others. In a sense, it gives the author’s work credibility and can only be viewed as such when distributed (and owned) by publishers like SAGE and Wiley.
I looked at the agreements for Taylor and Francis and Wiley-Blackwell.
The agreements are very similar in content, however the Taylor and Francis agreement really stood out when it came to the clarity of language. I read the Wiley agreement first, and it was so refreshing to come to the T&F agreement and feel like I was reading something that was written to be understood. I would need a lot of clarification with the Wiley agreement to feel confident in what I was agreeing to. The other major difference I noticed was the option with the T&F agreement for retrospective Open Access publication, for a very hefty fee. This means the author could regain the rights to their work, and make it open, if they could afford to do so in the future. As OA journals gain more recognition and prominence, I could see these agreements having to open up a bit to allow authors more control over their work. It is a high price to pay to give away copyright to the publisher, but for the moment, I can see how it is often a reasonable choice.
I looked at the Taylor & Francis and Wiley-Blackwell Publisher Agreements. Both of the documents clearly lay out what rights are retained by the author, but in completely different ways. Wiley-Blackwell breaks down the rights retained by different formats–Submitted, Accepted, and Final Published version. Taylor & Francis provides one list, but in more depth. After reading these my first response was that I would not want to give up copyright to my work. But thinking a little more about it, you still have broad rights to the using, and publishing the work in other forms. So I am now somewhat conflicted about it. That being said, I would be tempted to publish with Taylor & Francis and then pay the APC to get my copyright back. However, I doubt I will ever be able to afford it. This has made me think more about publishing only in journals where you retain copyright. But I recognize that this will most likely difficult, if not impossible, to do.
I reviewed the Elsevier’s and Sage’s agreements and found them essentially identical. Specially in terms of “Authors Rights” they are pretty much the same when they discussed the right to use the accepted, revised, or published version of the article. One main difference was that, for Elsevier, it seems that you’ll be giving up the copyright of your article at least for the duration of publication of your article, whereas, with Sage, you are still the owner of the copyright even after the article is published.
Also Sage seems to be more flexible as it allows the author to apply changes / revisions of the article (before it is published) without permission from the publisher but Elsevier requires a written permit for this.
ان الهدف الحقيقي ليس الناشر اوالملف…بعكس الهدف الحقيقي والهدف الانساني وليس المادي من اجل الانسانية في عالمنا تكون موضع أهمية الأجيال القادمة في فهم التعاون الكل من اجل سعادة البشرية
واشكر الجزيل لكل من ساهم وشارك في نجاح العمل
والشكر المعظم لكل أفرد وأعضاء العباقرة.
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