{"id":35479,"date":"2024-10-09T09:26:49","date_gmt":"2024-10-09T14:26:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/library.missouri.edu\/news\/?p=35479"},"modified":"2026-10-01T10:04:00","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T15:04:00","slug":"retaining-your-author-rights-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/library.missouri.edu\/news\/resources-and-services\/retaining-your-author-rights-2","title":{"rendered":"Retaining Your Author Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Don\u2019t Sign Away Your Rights!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Traditional publishers\u2019 agreements often transfer copyright from the author to the publisher, giving them the right to reproduce and redistribute your work.<\/p>\n<p>The most important thing you can do is read your copyright transfer agreement. Don\u2019t like what it says? You can amend the agreements to retain the rights you need to make copies of your work and to share it with others.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Examine your publishers\u2019 agreements<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>What is the publisher requiring of you? Those agreements that require you to transfer all your rights limit what you can do with your own work\u2014that is, you are no longer the copyright holder.<\/p>\n<p>If your publisher agreement reads something like: \u201cthe undersigned authors transfer ownership of copyright, including the right to publish and distribute the work by any means, method, or process whether now known or to be development in the future, to the Publisher,\u201d consider amending the agreement.<\/p>\n<p>Agreements that let you retain control of your work often have phrases like: \u201cI grant the journal a non-exclusive license to publish my work\u201d; \u201cI understand that no rights are transferred to the Journal\u201d; or \u201cI understand that a Creative Commons license will be applied to my work.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Modify your agreements when needed<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Publishing agreements are negotiable.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sparcopen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/SPARC-Author-Rights-Brochure-2006.pdf\">Know your rights<\/a>\u00a0and consider using the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sparcopen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Access-Reuse_Addendum.pdf\">SPARC author addendum<\/a>\u00a0to modify your agreement.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Deposit your work in MOspace<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019ve retained the right to post to an online archive, submit your work to the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/mospace.umsystem.edu\/xmlui\/pages\/about\">MOspace Institutional Repository<\/a>. An institutional repository, like MOspace, is one of the best ways to disseminate and preserve your work.\u00a0 As an open access tool, MOspace ensures that current and future generations of scholars benefit by finding your work.<\/p>\n<p>More information on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/libraryguides.missouri.edu\/c.php?g=28455&amp;p=174827\">retaining your rights<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Don\u2019t Sign Away Your Rights! Traditional publishers\u2019 agreements often transfer copyright from the author to the publisher, giving them the right to reproduce and redistribute your work. The most important thing you can do is read your copyright transfer agreement. Don\u2019t like what it says? You can amend the agreements to retain the rights you &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":135,"featured_media":27146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[496],"tags":[821,501,916,1012],"class_list":["post-35479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-resources-and-services","tag-hslnewsletter","tag-open-access","tag-open-access-week","tag-scholarly-communication"],"acf":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-10-17 13:26:59","action":"change-status","newStatus":"private","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/library.missouri.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/53\/2021\/08\/Retain-Your-Author-Rights-1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.missouri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.missouri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.missouri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.missouri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/135"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.missouri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35479"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/library.missouri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35481,"href":"https:\/\/library.missouri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35479\/revisions\/35481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.missouri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.missouri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.missouri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}