ScholarWorks is a collection of services designed to capture and showcase all scholarly output by the Boise State University community. These services include:
For assistance in using the ScholarWorks services or to learn more about the project, please contact:
ScholarWorks
Albertsons Library 217
(208) 426-2581
scholarworks@boisestate.edu
Once a work is placed in a fixed format, the creator – YOU – has exclusive rights over that work. These rights are known as copyrights.
As an author of a work, you control what happens to your creation.
This idea is often referred to as “author rights” and is a component of the open access movement.
Image: "_D3N1052_fix_6x4_b" by Innovation_School is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0
Why should I care about my author rights?
As the original copyright owner you should consider what rights you want to retain and what copyrights you will transfer before publishing your work. Do you have specific uses for your scholarship making it important that you retain certain rights? If so, it will be important to make certain the publisher you choose will help you meet those needs. If you have already transferred your copyrights, you can check the Copyright Transfer Agreement to see what author rights, if any, you still have.
As an author, what are my copyrights?
Section 106 of the U.S. Copyright Law grants authors exclusive rights to:
What does “dividing copyrights” mean?
The U.S. Copyright Law allows you to divide these different copyrights and transfer them separately. As the original copyright owner of your scholarship, you can choose to license different uses of your work. Unless you choose to, you do not have to transfer all of the exclusive rights all at once. However many publishers request that you transfer all of your copyrights to them. Depending upon how you want to disseminate your scholarship, this may or may not be to your benefit. For example, as an author, you may decide that it is best to only license the right to publish your article, but reserve the right to upload an electronic copy to your institutional repository. Thinking about each right separately could help maximize the use of your work.
Exclusive Author Rights | Examples |
to reproduce |
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to prepare derivative works |
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to distribute copies |
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to perform |
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to display |
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What is a Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA)?
As the author of a work you are the copyright holder unless and until you transfer the copyright to someone else in a signed agreement. In the case of publishing a journal article, this transfer is usually done through a Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA). A CTA is basically a form that an author signs granting the publisher the right to publish your work.
It is very common for publishers to require authors to transfer ALL copyrights to them. Although some publishers will insist this complete transfer is necessary, there is nothing in the U.S. Copyright Law that requires this and it is possible to publish a work without the author transferring all copyrights.