Research Guides: Open Access for NJIT Authors: Publishing Agreements

Publishing Agreements

Publishing agreements can vary depending on the publisher and the type of work being published, but they typically include provisions for copyright, licensing, and attribution. For example, the agreement might specify that the author retains copyright in the work and grants the publisher a non-exclusive license to distribute it as open access. The agreement might also require the author to provide attribution for any third-party content used in the work.

It's important for authors to carefully review any open access publishing agreement before signing, to ensure that they understand the terms and conditions and are comfortable with them. In some cases, authors may wish to negotiate certain aspects of the agreement, such as the length of the embargo period (if any) before the work can be made open access, or the scope of the license granted to the publisher.

Publisher Copyright Policies

Use SHERPA/RoMEO to find out about particular publishers’ policies on self-archiving and other rights given to authors in their standard publication agreements.

You can view some sample author agreements here:

Publishing Agreement Addendums

The Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine will help you generate a PDF form that you can attach to a journal publisher's agreement to ensure that you retain certain rights. Similarly, the SPARC Author Addendum is a pre-form addendum that can be filled in and attached to a publishing agreement to allow you to retain copyright and other intellectual rights to your work.

Right of Termination

Even if you transfer all rights to a publisher in your agreement, that transfer does not have to be unending, regardless of the wording of the contract. Under section 203 of the Copyright Act, you have the right to “terminate” the grant of rights to a publisher after a period of time and have the intellectual rights in your work transferred back to you.

This termination right would go into effect during a 5-year period beginning 35 years after the grant of rights to the publisher, or if you have granted publication rights, beginning either 35 years after publication or 40 years after the grant of rights, whichever comes first.

Rights Reversion

Another option for regaining rights that have been transferred to a publisher is through rights reversion. Many publishing contracts, particularly for books, contain a reversion clause allowing the author to request that rights be reverted back to them once the book has been out of print or otherwise unavailable on the market for a period of time. Even if you have a contract that lacks a reversion clause, it is possible to negotiate rights reversion with a publisher if you find that your work is currently out of circulation. For more information about regaining rights to published work through reversion, the Authors Alliance provides comprehensive resources in its Rights Reversion Portal.