Author Rights

It's important to understand whether you can legally share your work in OpenEmory, which is a publicly available repository. Review the information below for help.

What rights do I need to submit to OpenEmory?

By submitting your work to OpenEmory, you are depositing it in an institutional repository. The full text will be available to the public for free. Therefore, in order to submit a work to OpenEmory, you must have the right to reproduce and distribute the work on the open web.

Do I have the right to reproduce and distribute my work?

As an author of a work, you exclusively own all rights under copyright from the moment you create an original work "fixed in any tangible medium of expression" (17 U.S. Code § 102). If you take a photograph, you own the copyright the moment the photo is taken. If you write a journal article, you own the copyright the moment you put pen to paper or your fingertips to the keyboard.

As the copyright owner, you are entitled to a bundle of exclusive rights, including the right to:

reproduce the work
distribute the work
prepare a derivative work
publicly display the work (e.g., for artwork)
publicly perform the work (e.g., for music or plays)

As the copyright owner, you get to determine who is authorized to exercise any or all of these rights regarding your work for as long as the work is protected by copyright. The current copyright term is your life plus 70 years.

You are the owner of copyright to any original work you have created unless you have transferred your copyright to some other person or entity, such as a publisher, or the work constitutes a "work made for hire" [PDF] under U.S. Copyright Law. Note: Emory cedes any rights it may have in most scholarly publications back to the author; see Emory Policy 7.6: Intellectual Property Policy.

What rights do I have as a coauthor?

If you publish something with other authors, you share copyright. Each author has the same rights to the work and has an undivided share in copyright. This means your coauthor has the right to license the use of the work without your permission but must share any profits received from licensing the work. However, in practice, it is best if coauthors discuss and agree on where to publish the work, what rights to assign or retain, and whether to deposit the work in a repository like OpenEmory.

What rights do I have in a "work made for hire"?

Generally, when you create a copyrighted work "within the scope" of your employment, the work is a "work made for hire" [PDF] under U.S. Copyright Law. This means that your employer owns the copyright to that work. This can sometimes apply to the work you do for an internship or fellowship as well.

For more information about "work made for hire" at Emory University, please see Emory's Intellectual Property Policy (Policy 7.6).

How would I know if I transferred my copyright or not?

Copyright can only be transferred in writing. In the academic publishing world, copyright can often be transferred in publishing agreements. To understand if you have transferred your rights to a work, you must consult the agreement that you signed with the publisher.

If your work is not yet published, and you have not signed an author agreement or transfer of copyright, you still possess all the copyrights associated with your work.

If you have already published the work (or transferred the copyright/signed the author agreement associated with a projected publication), you can check your author agreement to find out what rights you have retained.

I do not have a copy of my publishing agreement. Now what?

To determine which version of an article you are allowed to publish, you can start by searching the Open Policy Finder database, which collects information about author agreements of various journals and publishers.

If your publisher's information is not available in the Open Policy Finder database, you can look at the publisher's website to see if they indicate what rights they allow authors to retain after publication.

If you are not the corresponding author for a particular work, reach out to that author to find out if they have a copy of the agreement.

Finally, you can always contact the publisher directly to ask for a copy of your author agreement.

I have transferred all my rights and am no longer the copyright owner. Can I submit to OpenEmory anyway?

No. If you are not the copyright owner of the work and the publisher's policy does not allow you to deposit the work in your institutional repository, you should not submit it to OpenEmory without seeking permission from the publisher first. Submitting a work to which you do not own copyright constitutes an infringement of copyright.

For more information on seeking permission, contact the Emory Libraries' Scholarly Communications Office.

Why should I retain my rights?

The short answer: control, freedom, and flexibility. Retaining some or all rights under copyright gives you the ability to reuse your own work and decide how your work can be used by others. You can decide who gets to copy your work, distribute it, put it on display, perform it, etc. Signing away all of these rights prevents you from controlling the work and limits your ability to use your own work again in the future. Most importantly, retaining rights under copyright gives you the ability to share your work freely and openly. You will need to retain the right to deposit in an institutional repository in order to include your work in OpenEmory.