Copyright: what you can and cannot do with your work

LiU E-Press has Developed a Competence in Copyright Issues

• Copyright applies to a) fiction or non-fiction writing or speech, b) computer programmes, c) musical or scientific work, d) film: photographic or other artistic work, e) architecture or functional art or works which have been expressed in other ways, f) maps and even other notations or graphics of a descriptive nature, and g) computer-based design material.
• The rules for personal web pages are much the same as for E-Press.
• Any questions? Ask us.

Copyright and Theses

• The printed version of a thesis is not considered by commercial journal publishers to have a wide enough circulation to be considered "published". Hence including articles or article material in the printed version of a thesis is not a problem.
• Electronic theses, are more sensitive to copyright issues
  • For "collection of articles" types of theses, remove all the articles (both published and in-press), publish only the introduction (kappa - in Swedish) and provide links to the published articles.
  • Parallel publishing of articles is often allowed. See discussion below.
  • Do not publish manuscripts prior to them being published commercially. Some journals do allow what is called pre-print publishing (i.e. publishing manuscripts before they have been published by a journal) however, we have heard of a small number of cases where even when the journal allowed it, referees were not always that happy.
  • For "monograph" type theses, publishers feel that chapters will require significant re-writing before the material becomes an article and hence there is not a problem with electronically publishing a monograph-type thesis, even if some of the material has not been turned into an article.

Research Articles and Parallel Publishing

With most commercial journals, authors sign an agreement in which they give up the copyright to the article. However, with most publishers there is a clause which deals with rights retained by the author and with 90% of publishers this clause allows authors to publish their articles on personal and institutional websites with some minor conditions.

Photographs, diagram, tables, maps, drawings, art, multi media etc.

The Copyright also applies to photographs, diagram, tables, maps, drawings, arts, collage etc. which are published in print or electronically and for sound and video files. This means that you can not, without permission from the copyright holder, straight off, use mentioned material from the Internet, books, newpapers etc. Always ask for permission to use copyright protected material! In order to make it easier getting a permission, state that the copyright protected material will be used in an academic context for example Ph.D. Thesis, student thesis or a report and that the electronic version will be published at the University non-commercial publisher Linköping University Electronic Press. A full reference to the used material and the copyright holder must also be stated.

Amending the Traditional Copyright Agreement

• The problem with copyright issues arises because authors traditionally sign away virtually all rights with regards the copyright of an article, when it is published.
• What is recommended is that authors attach an addendum to the copyright agreements used by journals that allows parallel publishing on institutional and personal web sites.
• The SPARC organization developed an addendum which is now in wide use. One simply fills it in and attachs it to the copyright form supplied by the journal, together with a covering letter explaining that you are adding an addendum and mails to the journal.

At LiU E-Press Authors Retain the Copyright

When publishing at LiU E-Press, authors do not lose the copyright:

1. All authors, including students, who publish their work at www.ep.liu.se (LiU E-Press), retain the copyright to their work.
2. All work published at LiU E-Press is protected by Swedish copyright law. LiU E-Press has no commercial interest in the material it publishes.
3. The publishing agreement that all authors must sign prior to publication at LiU E-Press, only gives LiU E-Press permission to make an author’s work available on the internet.
4. As author, it is your responsibility to ensure that the material you use in your work is not copyright protected; this includes figures, tables, diagrams, and sound and video files.
5. If someone other than yourself has created or been involved in the creation of sound or video clips to be included in your work, then you must have permission from them to publish the files. Use our form (pdf) to get this permission.
6. In the case that you subsequently publish your work with a third party, you must inform that publishing body that the work is already published at LiU E-Press (this does not prevent you from publishing with a third party, but they cannot restrict the publication at LiU E-Press).
7. Parallel publishing of articles at LiU E-Press is frequently allowed, without requiring additional permission from the publisher. Information about publishers policies can be found at Sherpa.