Universiteit Maastricht

Licences

Publishers of academic journals generally expect their authors to sign a copyright transfer agreement or licence before their articles are published. Each publisher has its own standard agreement, which means the rights you retain will vary.


However, you are not obliged to sign a standard agreement. Some of the most important rights you may retain before you sign an agreement are the right to

  • reuse an article for publication in a book
  • rewrite and revise an article
  • disseminate the article among other scholars in your field
  • make copies of your article for teaching purposes
  • have the article included in a repository.

It is therefore recommended that you state your demands clearly during the negotiations.

   

Copyright Toolbox

To assist you in drawing up an agreement, you can use SURF’s Copyright Toolbox:

http://copyrighttoolbox.surf.nl/copyrighttoolbox/


This toolbox allows an author or publisher/institution to compose agreements simply, by addressing each step relevant to publication.


The section ‘Sample Wording’ in the Copyright Toolbox provides an overview of sample passages you may use in your contract if you wish to retain certain rights.


Other licences that you, as an author, can use are:
 

  1. Licence to Publish
    a standard model developed by SURF to lay down agreements on the publication process in a licence.

    SURF has developed its own licence that helps academics retain the copyright on their publications. The Licence to Publish is aimed at academics who publish in journals with a subscription model. The licence regulates that
     

    • the author grants the publisher permission to engage in commercial activities with his/her work, such as publishing it in printed or digital format, translating it or revising it.

    • the author retains the right to multiply or reuse the work in the format in which the publisher publishes it, and publish it in the repository of the author’s institution.

    • the author, at the request of the publisher, postpones publication of the work in the repository until six months after publication.

      The latter stipulation in particular serves the interests of publishers. The licence thus tries to strike a balance between the rights of the author on the one hand and the interests of the publisher on the other. In this way, SURF attempts to optimise access to academic results.

      You can download the Licence to Publish from:

      http://copyrighttoolbox.surf.nl/copyrighttoolbox/authors/licence/
       

  2. Creative Commons
    a licence in which you clarify in advance, by means of icons, what others may do with your work.

    A Creative Commons licence allows you to retain your copyright, but permits others to disseminate your work, share it with others, and sometimes adapt it.

    You can find complete information about Creative Commons licences at:

    http://creativecommons.nl/ (the information is only available in Dutch).