Copyright and licence information
N.B. There is a seperate page with copyright information for teachers creating course packs
This page contains information about copyrights and alternative publishing licenses that is important for you if you would like to place your thesis or articles in the Igitur Archive.
If you have questions that are not answered here, please contact:
bibliotheek@uu.nl
- What do I need to know about copyrights as an author?
- What can I do as an author to ensure that I keep my copyrights?
- Can I place a previously published article in the Igitur Archive?
- I would like to place my publications in the Igitur Archive, but I have signed away the copyrights: what now?
- I do not have permission to place the definitive version of my publication in the archive: what now?
- Can I still place my publication in the archive if I do not receive permission?
- My doctoral thesis contains yet to be published articles; can I still place it in the Igitur Archive?
- Where can I find more information about copyrights, Open Access and (inter)national developments?
- Where should I direct my questions about copyrights?
1. What do I need to know about copyright as an author?
- The copyright is an exclusive right of the creator of a work of literature, science/scholarship, or art to publish or duplicate it.
- Copyright is intended to protect an author’s work and to stimulate the distribution of the work.
- Authors are frequently asked by publishers to hand over their exploitation rights. In many contracts, authors are required to transfer exclusive rights to the publisher.
- Actually, this is not required. Many publishers, influenced by the internet and the open access movement, no longer claim exclusive exploitation rights as long they may execute these rights on behalf of the author. This type of arrangement is made in a non-exclusive agreement, or a licence. A licence allows you to make agreements with a publisher regarding the use/exploitation of your work.
- A commonly used example of such a licence is the one provided by Creative Commons. Using a Creative Commons licence, authors can indicate precisely what kind of usage is freely permitted and what is not. By placing an icon with a link to a licence next to a photo or text, an author can determine the terms under which his work is published – online or on paper. It can be made available for non-commercial reuse, or for example, available for any reuse as long as the author’s name is credited. See: Creative Commons.
- For more details regarding copyright, see the SURF website.
(back to top)
2. What can I do as an author to ensure that I keep my copyright?
- SURF has developed a model agreement which assists authors in making appropriate agreements with publishers regarding the publication of their work. The licence to publish is the result of intensive international cooperation and its intent is to achieve a balance between rights and interests in the rapidly developing world of scientific communication. The licence to publish is base don the principle that the results of publicly financed research will be made publicly available as quickly as possible. The author retains ownership of the material and can thus place the material on his own website, in a repository, or make it available for classroom use. If the publisher agrees, you may use the publisher’s PDF. At the request of the publisher, free accessibility can be delayed for up to 6 months (embargo).
- This licence along with more information can be found at:
http://copyrighttoolbox.surf.nl/copyrighttoolbox/authors/licence/.
(back to top)
3 . Can I place a previously published article in the Igitur Archive?
You would like to place your previously published article in the Igitur Archive or you have been asked by the university to make your publication (book, journal article, congress contribution, thesis) available for inclusion in the archive, and you would like to know if this is permitted by the publisher.
- It is not allowed if you have already signed a written agreement transferring all exploitation rights to the publisher of the journal where your article was published. In this case, you may no longer decide what is done with your article. However, you can always ask the publisher’s permission to place your publications in the digital scientific archive.
- It is allowed if you have not transferred your exploitation rights, for example, if you have used the Surf Licence to publish. Be careful: rights are only transferred by means of a written agreement specifically intended for this purpose. If you have not signed anything, you are still the copyright owner.
- You are the copyright owner of the electronic rights to all of your articles published before 1997. Despite the fact that you may have signed a copyright transfer form, you are still the copyright holder of the electronic rights. So it is not a problem to place all of your articles published before 1997 in the Igitur Archive.
(back to top)
4. I would like to place my publications in the Igitur Archive, but I have signed away the copyrights: what now?
- Check your publisher’s policy on this issue at Sherpa. This website provides the self-archiving policies (such as the placement of articles on personal or institutional websites or in digital academic repositories) for more than 100 publishers. Note: to locate a journal you must use the full title – no abbreviations.
- Additional information regarding Dutch publishers can be found on the website of Leiden University.
- If you discover that the Publisher does not allow self-archiving, you can still request that they make an exception; our experience shows that permission is often given for example, if the author explains that it concerns manadatory archival of a thesis in the institutional archive and that it does not concern commercial use.
• An example of a written publisher permission letter can be downloaded 
here.
- Even if the publisher does not allow self-archiving, it is useful to submit a permission request. The more requests that a publisher receives; the more likely they are to reconsider their policy.
(back to top)
5. I do not have permission to place the definitive version of my publication in the archive: what now?
Your publication has multiple versions. We use the definitions of the different versions as they are used by Sherpa (see example below).
- If you cannot place the publisher’s version of the article in a digital archive, some publishers will allow the version prior to the publisher’s version to be made digitally available via the archive. This version is often referred to as the post-print or the final version. This version does not contain the formatting of the journal but the post-print has been reviewed and edited. In the post-print, you can always mention the name of the journal where the article is (or will be) published. Some publishers make this a requirement. The inclusion of the publisher’s information in the bibliographic information is sometimes also required.
- Publishers are often more flexible with regard to pre-prints. Pre-prints are versions of articles that have only been submitted to a journal but have not yet been reviewed. The university library prefers that you place the post-print, or the definitive version of your article, in to the archive.
- In the following example, you can see how the SHERPA website presents the publisher’s policy:
6. Can I still place my publication in the archive if I do not receive permission?
- This may damage your relationship with the publisher, but there are no legal consequences. However, the library may be required to block access to the document if the at the publisher requests this.
(back to top)
7. My doctoral thesis contains yet to be published articles; can I still place it in the Igitur Archive?
According to the guidelines for doctoral candidates of Utrecht University, it is required to submit a digital version of their thesis to the Igitur Archive. Does this cause specific problems with copyrights?
- If you have one or more articles that you have not yet published or have submitted for publication, depending on the publisher, it may be wise to wait until your article is officially accepted or published to place it online. 80% of the publishers do not have a problem with authors placing preprints on the internet, particularly not when it concerns a doctoral thesis. A preprint is the original version of the article as it was submitted to the publisher prior to review. Various publishers’ and journals’ policies can be found on the SHERPA website. If the publisher or journal is not listed on the SHERPA website, we recommend that you contact the (potential) publisher. In all other cases, there is no reason not to make your thesis freely available online via the Igitur Archive. You may also choose to make use of an embargo period of a half year after your graduation.
(back to top)
8. Where can I find more information about copyrights, Open Access and (inter)national developments?
9. Where should I direct my questions about copyrights?
Please send an e-mail to
bibliotheek@uu.nl