Copyright & Authors
According to U.S. Copyright Law, copyright protects works of "original authorship that are fixed in a tangible expression". This includes broad categories of literary works, musical works, dramatic works, visual (pictorial, graphic, and sculptural) works, pantomime and choreographical works, motion pictures and other audiovisual works, sound recordings, and architectural works. Copyright takes effect immediately once a work has been fixed in a tangible form - registration is not necessary - and lasts for 70 years after the death of the author, or, in the case of works for hire or anonymous/pseudonymous works, 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter.
Copyright gives the author the following exclusive rights:
- to reproduce the work
- to prepare Derivative Works based on the work
- to distribute the work
- to publicly perform the work
- to publicly display the work
These rights can be transferred from the author in whole or in parts, but exclusive rights can only be transferred in writing and signed by the copyright holder.
The SPARC Author Addendum provides useful information to authors who want to publish in the developing age of Open Access and Creative Commons. It explains what rights are traditionally signed away when one publishes with a journal, and gives ideas for approaching publishers in a way to retain some of those rights for other uses, such as including it on the author's personal web page, an institutional repository, distributing it to a class, or using it in a later article.
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