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Scholarly Communication: Author Rights

The Scholarly Communications committee provides Bucknell’s faculty scholars with customized information, education, and guidance as well as the technical resources and support services needed throughout all steps of the scholarly communications process.

Introduction

You wrote something, you want to keep your copyright/some of the rights in copyright? Your options include paying an APC or BPS and license your work to the publisher, Diamond OA publishing, and trying an author addendum

 

Traditionally, authors transfer their copyright to their publisher when publishing their work. Under this agreement, the author often gives up their legal right to reproduce, share, or create derivatives of their work.

Thankfully imperfect alternatives have been emerging within the scholarly communications realm. Most common is the model of Gold OA publishing, where you pay publication costs and license your copyrighted work to the publisher for them to reproduce and distribute. Depending on your interests, needs, and funding sources, this may not be the best solution for you. 

In this section (which we’ll admit gets a bit repetitive), we strongly recommend you experiment with and try to use author addendums when negotiating with your publisher. While you may still be signing over the copyright to them, these addendums often protect your ability to distribute and use your own work without any additional costs.