For publication, many non-Open Access publishers request a Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA) to be signed. The agreement/contract language varies per publisher, but most often it requests all copyright to be transferred or an exclusive publishing license to be granted. As a result, you as researcher have no say over how to share your work any longer, if you sign the agreement/contract.
provide info
Most often, researchers do not think about a Copyright (or License) Transfer Agreement until the paper has already been accepted and they get an e-mail asking for their signature. By not thinking about this issue upon submission, it puts you in a bad negotiating position. Your career opportunities in academia might depend on that publication due to Perverse incentives and it makes sense to put career above not wanting to transfer the copyright.
If you want to renegotiate the agreement, the SPARC author addendum is a good place to start. It provides you with some tangible advice about copyright and how to renegotiate the contract. Be prepared for a struggle, because there are anecdotal stories out there that they are unwilling to shift their position (see here for an example).
how-to
By checking what the conditions of the contract are going to be before you submit, you can make an informed decision of where to publish. Most publishers provide template copies of their CTA on their website (for many of the major publishers, we found these for you). If you want fewer and the least amount of restrictions on how your work may be shared by others, check out Open Access.
Exercises
Consult the list of Copyright Transfer Agreements per publisher and read through the agreement of a publisher you (expect to) interact with. What stands out? What do you (dis)agree with? What would you like to renegotiate?
A lot of content can be copied from the libcopy project (website version)
introduce topic
For publication, many non-Open Access publishers request a Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA) to be signed. The agreement/contract language varies per publisher, but most often it requests all copyright to be transferred or an exclusive publishing license to be granted. As a result, you as researcher have no say over how to share your work any longer, if you sign the agreement/contract.
provide info
Most often, researchers do not think about a Copyright (or License) Transfer Agreement until the paper has already been accepted and they get an e-mail asking for their signature. By not thinking about this issue upon submission, it puts you in a bad negotiating position. Your career opportunities in academia might depend on that publication due to Perverse incentives and it makes sense to put career above not wanting to transfer the copyright.
If you want to renegotiate the agreement, the SPARC author addendum is a good place to start. It provides you with some tangible advice about copyright and how to renegotiate the contract. Be prepared for a struggle, because there are anecdotal stories out there that they are unwilling to shift their position (see here for an example).
how-to
By checking what the conditions of the contract are going to be before you submit, you can make an informed decision of where to publish. Most publishers provide template copies of their CTA on their website (for many of the major publishers, we found these for you). If you want fewer and the least amount of restrictions on how your work may be shared by others, check out Open Access.
Exercises