Author’s Rights/Copyright Information:

Authors must own the copyright for (or have permission to post) work submitted to Scholars Compass. Authors grant the university a non-exclusive, perpetual right to use the digital assets for non-commercial use. Because authors retain the copyright for all content posted in the repository, they are free to reuse the content elsewhere.

Determining your author rights for previously published material:

• Refer to the original publishing agreement if you have it.
• Many publishers’ policies on re-posting articles are available at the SHERPA/RoMEO site.
• If the publisher is not listed on the site, contact them directly. Suggested templates for permission requests are available at the SHERPA site.

Advocate for your author rights when publishing new material:

• Author(s) of work(s) own the copyright unless transferred to another.
• Many publishers ask that author(s) transfer their rights, but authors do have options other than giving up their copyright ownership entirely.
  • Authors can negotiate with publishers to retain certain rights.
  • For more information on author’s rights consult SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition).
    • SPARC Author’s Rights
    • SPARC Author Addendum

For more detailed copyright information, please see the VCU Libraries Copyright page.

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