GSU Library Research Guides: Open Access: Related Issues

Copyright and Author's Rights

This is for informational purposes only and is not legal advice. If you would like legal advice regarding copyright or your author's rights, contact GSU Legal Affairs.

A copyright owner controls who can

make copies of the work,
distribute copies of the work,
perform or display the work publicly, and
make derivative works, like translations, adaptations, and reinterpretations.

U.S. Copyright Code, 17 U.S.C. § 106

A copyright owner can share some or all of those rights with others by transferring (assigning) ownership or granting licenses.

Publishers usually ask for the transfer of all copyrights through a Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA) to publish books or articles. Authors don't need to transfer all of their copyrights for this to occur. The publisher only needs the right to distribute. Authors should know the Copyright Basics, learn their rights and how to exercise them, and consider using an addendum to preserve their author rights.

Another alternative is to consider using a Creative Commons License, especially for items in open access journals or repositories. Creative Commons licensing does not replace copyright; it just lets others use works in specific ways that the author chooses, without them having to ask the author's permission first, and encourages creativity, sharing, and innovation. For more information, check out these links:

Copyright Information Center - Cornell University
Copyright tutorials, training and resources.
FAQs about Creative Commons Licenses
Frequently asked questions about creative commons licenses and copyright.
Authors Alliance
Empowering Authors in the Digital Age
Author Rights & the SPARC Author Addendum
Information, tutorials and resources for author's rights.
U.S. Copyright Office Website
Copyright according to the law.
Author's Rights, Tout de Suite
From Charles W. Bailey, Jr. Author's Rights Tout de Suite is designed to give journal article authors a quick introduction to key aspects of author's rights and to foster further exploration of this topic through liberal use of relevant references to online documents and links to pertinent Web sites. 13pgs.

Digital Repositories

Digital Repositories are the primary means for collecting and displaying open access materials, at least green open access materials. They generally come in two varieties:

Institutional repositories - collect a university's scholarship. ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University is an example.
Subject specific digital repositories - collect scholarship on a particular subject or group of subjects. arXiv.org, which collects math and science open access articles, is one example. Another is PubMed. OpenDOAR is a global Directory of Open Access Repositories.

Mandates

Open access policies or mandates refer to situations where authors are required to make their research available in an open access repository. Some private and most public funding bodies require that data and publications resulting from grant funded research be submitted to an open access repository. Some universities also require authors to submit their articles to their institutional repository. GSU does NOT currently have a mandate. JISC Open Policy includes funder open access policies.

Coalition-S is an international body with a well-known Plan-S mandate. United States Federal Agency mandates are being developed are discussed on the Federal Public Access Mandates tab.