Publish your research

Look up journal's copyright restrictions

To find out a specific journal's expectations regarding transferring copyright, search for their copyright policies. This can usually be found in their "rights and permissions" or "author rights" section.

Use an author addendum to negotiate your rights as the author

An author addendum is a proposed modification to a publisher's standard copyright transfer agreement. If accepted, it allows the author to retain key rights. Publishing agreements are negotiable, so open a conversation with the publisher by including an author addendum in the publication agreement. For an overview of the issues involved around giving up your copyright, as well as a sample author addendum, please see "Using the SPARC Canadian Author Addendum to secure your rights as the author of a journal article".

• Always save a copy of your contract!
• Cross out and/or replace clauses or language you do not want (e.g. track changes)
• Add in important clauses (retention of rights, assertion of additional rights)
• Include author addendums that retain specific rights

For articles

• Distribution rights: right to distribute to your students
• Archiving rights: right to upload the published final version to your personal website or an institutional repository
• Republishing rights: right to republish the work in a later work of your own (e.g., as a chapter)
• Reuse rights: right to grant permission to others to use your work
• Data use rights: right to reuse tables, figures, illustrations, and data
• Open availability: right to make article publicly available to fulfill funding requirements

For books

• Copyright reversion: ensuring that rights revert to you if the book goes out of print
• Non-compete limiters: eliminating clauses limiting subject areas or publishers for your future work
• Copyright registration: requiring that the copyright be registered in your name and not the publisher's
• Copyright transfer: limiting the copyright transfer to specific geographical territories and/or languages
• Royalties
• Author copies: discount on author copies for the purpose of selling book at workshops or conferences