Scholarly works are protected under copyright once they are published. Copyright can be assigned or transferred to another party, e.g., the author can transfer the copyright to the publisher.
For subscription-based journals, in order to facilitate the protection against copyright infringement and enable efficient processing of publishing licensing and permission, the publisher often requires authors to assign or transfer the copyright to the publisher before they will publish the articles. Usually a Copyright Transfer Agreement or an Exclusive License Agreement needs to be signed by the author, as part of the publishing contract. After the copyright is transferred or certain license is issued, the publisher can publish and distribute the author's work, enforce the rights in the work on behalf of the author (e.g. grant permission to others to reuse the work), including for commercial purposes.
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The terms in such agreements may vary from publisher to publisher. Regardless of the format, the agreement should contain requirements and address rewards for both parties. To protect your rights as an author, it is recommended that you examine the terms stated in the agreements concerning the following rights:
Note that,
For Open Access articles, it is more common to adopt Creative Commons (CC) licenses, where the author retains the copyright, and can grant the publisher a license (can be exclusive or non-exclusive) to publish and distribute the article.
Some sample open access agreements are also available in the List of Copyright Guidelines from Publishers.
References:
Major publishers all define their guidelines regarding copyright and licensing. Here are some guidelines of major publishers for your reference:
To know more about Creative Commons (CC) licenses, visit here.
Contact us if you need assistance from a librarian.
Research students may come across copyright issues when working on their thesis projects. On the one hand, they may include copyright materials in their thesis, such as a quote from a journal article, or an image from a website, or reuse the material from their own journal publication, in which the copyright may have been transferred to the publisher. On the other hand, students may also wish to publish journal articles that are resulted from the research done in their thesis. In either situation, students need to deal with copyright issues. Here are some suggestions:
To reuse copyright materials in the thesis work, the author needs to ensure that specific permission has been obtained from the copyright owner. However, some exceptions allow reusing copyrighted materials without permission for research or private study purposes, e.g., quoting a short quotation from a journal article in the thesis work. Some publishers also allow authors to reuse their own journal articles in part or in full in their thesis work. Refer to our guides to learn more about obtaining permission from the copyright owner and fair dealing.
Note that citing the source of a copyrighted work does not mean that the copyright has been cleared - the author is still required to obtain permission unless the situation can be covered under fair dealing.
There are chances that the author will be asked by the journal editor to confirm the copyright issue of turning part of his/her thesis work into a journal publication. Generally, publishers would not have issues with publishing papers as a resulting from the student thesis, as long as
1) the article contains materials that have been extensively revised from the thesis, and
2) the student/author has given credit to his/her thesis work in the article.
Note that a copy of the research student's thesis may be uploaded to the institutional repository (PIRA) for public access. Students can apply for a delay in making their thesis openly accessible by submitting an application for keeping their thesis confidential. For details, please refer to the Research Postgraduate Student Handbook.
If you employed Generative AI (GenAI) or AI-assisted tools in your thesis, please find more information in Generative AI in Publishing.
Publishers regularly get in touch with thesis authors via email with an offer to publish their work. These unsolicited proposals are concerning since publishing with these organizations could limit how you can use the information in your thesis in the future.
Students are suggested to seek permission from PolyU if you decide to publish a book with the same content of your theses.
