Author Rights for Faculty

Section 106 of the Copyright Act states that only the owner of copyright has the exclusive rights to do and to authorize any of the following:

1. To reproduce the work;
2. To prepare derivative works based upon the work;
3. To distribute copies of the work;
4. To publicly perform the work;
5. To publicly display the work;
6. To publicly perform sound recordings using digital audio transmission.

When you write a book or an article, you are the owner and the copyright holder. When you go to publish your book or article, you will usually be presented with a contract or copyright transfer agreement drafted by the publisher.

Many of these publisher-drafted agreements transfer copyright fully to the publisher. This restricts any future usage of your published work, including reuse of the work in teaching and further research.  

However, there are ways you can negotiate with the publisher in order to obtain more rights to use your work after it's published. 

Sherpa Romeo is a free database containing the copyright and self-archiving policies of more than 22,000 journals and periodicals. 

Each journal is coded with a classification color (yellow, blue, green, or white) to indicate the archiving policies of each journal.

Please note that policies are pulled from publisher websites and updated periodically.