Copyright

What is the position on copyright?

If you have created an original work in literary, dramatic, artistic, or musical form, and you own the copyright in that work, other people will not normally be permitted to copy the work without your consent. Unauthorised copying would constitute an infringement under the UK Copyright Act. You may permit others to copy your work by means of a licence. By this method you will retain the ownership of the copyright of your work but you will be allowing the person to whom you grant the licence to do things to your work (such as copy it) in the way set out in the licence agreement.

Do I lose copyright if I deposit into SAS-SPACE?

No. You retain your copyright in your work. In fact, in certain circumstances, scholars are likely to be asked to cede their copyrights to their publishers. SAS-SPACE asks for the irrevocable, non-exclusive royalty-free right to reproduce, distribute, display, and perform this work in any format including electronic formats throughout the world for educational, research, and scientific non-profit uses during the full term of copyright including renewals and extensions..

What licences are granted when depositing items?

Those who contribute items to SAS-SPACE are asked to grant two licences. One is a licence to the organisation which manages the repository. This will permit the manager, in this case the School of Advanced Study of the University of London, to reproduce the item in digital form, so that it can be made available for access in the repository. The terms of the licence which you are asked to grant to the University for this purpose are as follows:-

I grant to the University of London the irrevocable, non-exclusive royalty-free right to reproduce, distribute, display, and perform this work in any format including electronic formats throughout the world for educational, research, and scientific non-profit uses during the full term of copyright including renewals and extensions.

The other licence is for the benefit of those who wish to make use of items stored in the e-repository. For this purpose we recommend use of the Creative Commons licences.

What is a Creative Commons licence?

Creative Commons is a group founded by lawyers in academia (originally in Stanford, Duke and other USA universities) which has developed forms of licence suitable for those contributing items to e-repositories. When you contribute an item to the repository, you can choose a form of licence which will make clear to other users what they can and cannot do with your work. This has the advantage that users will not have to apply to individual contributors on each occasion for consent to copy items or do other things which are permitted by the licence. So if a teacher at another institution wants to use some of your material in a course, or a publisher wants to include your photo on a dust jacket, they can do so if the licence which you have attached to your material makes it clear that it is permitted. The users still have to give you credit for the content of your contribution whenever they use it, and if they do something which is not permitted by the licence, they will be in breach of copyright and may be pursued through the courts.

You may select from a range of options when you attach a Creative Commons licence to your work. The licence created will reflect the options which you have chosen. The following link will take you to the various forms of licence which are available: Meet the Licences . You can find the full text of the legal licence document through the link, but this will probably be of interest only to lawyers.

The least restrictive form of such licences is the 'Attribution' licence. This will potentially facilitate the greatest exposure for your work, while still giving you credit for its creation. Other forms of licence are more restrictive; for instance you may wish to prohibit any commercial use being made of your work. In SAS-SPACE it is essential to assign the copyright licence to the work at the time it is submitted. Unless your collection manager has already defined a suitable collection-specific licence, please go to Licence selection which will allow you to choose the licence to be used with the item so that other users will know what they are allowed to do with it. This link will take you to the Creative Commons web site, with additional links that give you further explanations.

May I deposit copies of published articles into SAS-SPACE?

Yes, provided that your agreement with the publisher allows you to do so, or you have obtained permission from the publisher. See Terms of Use

Publisher policies relating to copyright, Open Access and self-archiving are listed on the Romeo database, which can be accessed at http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/romeo.php.