Researcher Essentials

Including copyright material in your publication

Before submitting your work to a publisher make sure that the material you have included is your own. If you have included third-party material (e.g. images or figures) make sure you either:

• have permission to reproduce the material (permission must be granted in writing and be kept for your records)
• the material has a licence that would allow you to reproduce it in your article (for example, a Creative Commons Licence), correct attribution must be supplied with the material.

When you publish open access you apply a Creative Commons Licence to your article. This licence allows you to choose the ways in which your work can be distributed and reused.

However, if you publish via the traditional route you may be required to transfer some, or all, of your copyright to the publisher through the publishing agreement.

See The University of Melbourne's Understanding publishing agreements. 

Negotiating your rights

You have the right to negotiate with any publisher before signing the agreement. When negotiating you may want to ensure that you retain your right to:

• deposit a copy of your author accepted manuscript to Cross Connect
• use the material for teaching and educational purposes
• share the work with colleagues
• reuse figures, images and tables from the work in future work (e.g. presentations). 

You can use the pre-submission letter, accompanying letter, or ask for an addendum to be added to the publishing agreement. For example, see:

• Coalition S Author template (linked on page 3)
• SPARC author addendum.