Managing Your Rights as an Author

Have you given any thought to managing your own copyrights? Would you automatically sign a publishing agreement without reading the fine print? What are the implications of public access to your thesis or dissertation after deposit or of delaying release? This session will address common authors' rights issues encountered by graduate students.

Transcript

1. Carrie A. L. Nelson | UW-Madison Libraries | March 7, 2017 graduate support series managing your rights as an author
2. speaking the language • Copyright transfer • Work-for-hire • Author’s manuscript • License to publish • Pre-prints and post-prints • Non-exclusive license • Authors’ addendum • Embargos
3. exclusive rights to reproduce the copyrighted work to prepare derivative works based upon the copyrighted work to distribute copies to the public by sale, rental, lease, or lending to perform the copyrighted work publicly to display the copyrighted work publicly
4. other details copyrights automatically belong to the author as soon as the work is “fixed in a tangible medium” co-authorship may or may not lead to “joint works” “derivative works” could include revised versions or books based on articles
5. copyright transfer •written contract •exclusive vs. non- exclusive rights •publishers need permission to reproduce and distribute •non-exclusive right to publish vs. copyright transfer
6. documents
7. what’s negotiable? authors’ future uses • in teaching • in related publications others’ future uses • within institution • public sharing • repository and posting options • embargo periods rights reversion
8. what’s negotiable? Publishers’ future uses: I hereby assign publisher with full title guarantee all rights of copyright and related publishing rights in my article, in all forms and all media (whether known at this time or developed at any time in the future) throughout the world, in all languages, where our rights include but are not limited to the right to translate, create adaptations, extracts, or derivative works and to sublicense such rights, for the full term of copyright (including all renewals and extensions of that term), to take effect if and when the article is accepted for publication.
9. in practice •select publishers based on standard terms (SHERPA/RoMEO) •author addenda •read the fine print •retaining copyright means managing permissions
10. dissertation deposit During the deposit process, you are presented with a publishing agreement from ProQuest/UMI • The agreement is non-exclusive • You maintain the copyrights • You’ll be paid a 10% royalty on any sales You also can pay ProQuest to register the copyright for you with the U.S. Copyright Office • Registration is necessary before suing for infringement and impacts some types of damages that can be awarded • You can register yourself online (the current standard fee is $35) anytime
11. dissertation decisions Dissertation decisions are nuanced and individual When you deposit, you can choose to embargo the public access for 6 months, 1 year, or 2 years. If you want to embargo longer, you’ll need to send a written request signed by you and your dissertation advisor. While the dissertation is embargoed, there will be no record of the dissertation in the public domain. Series on dissertation dissemination and publishing Audrey Truschke, Mellon Postdoc, Stanford University Dissertation Reviews, April 2015
12. questions
13. contact Carrie: carrie.nelson@wisc.edu