 Hi, I'm Sharon Farb, Associate University Librarian for Collection Management and Scholarly Communication at the UCLA Library. And I'm Amy Blum, Senior Campus Counsel for UCLA. During this short podcast, we will address the subject of author's rights. As a scholar at UCLA, you have an opportunity and responsibility to publish your work with a variety of distinguished and respected publishers. Today we will give you some advice about negotiating to retain the copyrights that are essential to your teaching and research needs. Most publishers will ask you to sign an agreement similar to the ones that you see here, and they'll ask you to do that very close to the time that you send your final manuscript in for publication. I'm sure these look familiar, but how many of us actually read and consider what the publisher is asking us to sign before we actually sign the contract? As an author or creator of an intellectual work, you are granted by U.S. copyright law what we refer to as a bundle of rights. These rights include the right to copy, distribute, make derivative works to publicly display and to publicly perform your work. In the best case, the author's agreement will allow you to keep your copyright while granting the publisher some of those rights. For example, it might give the publisher the right to reproduce and distribute the work for a limited amount of time. However, most standard author's agreements ask you to sign over, many if not all of your rights to the publisher. Remember, if you sign such an agreement as is without making any modifications, you may have given up your rights to use and reuse your published work. For example, you might not be able to post a copy of your own work on your own course website. You also may not be able to share a copy with your colleagues or friends. You might give up the right to create a derivative work based on your own original work or even to include portions of your work in a presentation at a conference. In some cases, giving up your copyright could result in paying a permission fee to the publisher to reuse your own work. This is one of the reasons that many academic authors are exploring other kinds of publishing venues such as open access journals and institutional repositories. The University of California's 1992 policy on copyright ownership supports the retention of copyright by UC authors. The copyright policy states, A complete transfer of copyright to a publisher restricts a faculty member's right to use the work in future teaching and research. UC faculty members facing this situation should not hesitate to try and negotiate new terms. We encourage you to read the policy on copyright ownership and to visit the University of California's reshaping scholarly communication webpages. Both offer basic information on copyright, alternate forms of publishing, and retaining your copyright. In the meantime, here are a few tips and tools for retaining your rights as an author. First, read your author's agreements. Some agreements are better than others. Note, once you sign an agreement, the terms are legal and binding. If you need help interpreting your agreement, consult with one of the UCLA library, copyright librarians, and resources whose contact information will be available at the end of this podcast. Second, decide what rights are important for you to keep. If your author's agreement is not acceptable, how does it need to change? Consider whether you'd be willing to give up your copyright provided that the publisher gives you back certain privileges, such as the right to use your material professionally or the right to post your material on your website. Decide what rights you'd like to keep and what rights, if any, are not as important to you. Your decisions could significantly affect the long-term dissemination and duration of your scholarly work. Finally, if you decide to negotiate with the publisher to retain your rights, be very specific about what you intend to do with your work. Add the appropriate wording to your agreement and redline any terms that you do not want in your agreement. This process can take some time and may involve several back-and-forths between you and the publisher. Many authors opt for an addition of an addendum whose terms will supersede those stated in the agreement. There are several organizations that can help with creating authors' addendums. Creative Commons has created an online tool called the Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine, which makes it easier to enter data about your work and the rights you wish to retain. The addendum can then be saved as a PDF to be sent to the publisher for signing along with your agreement. The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, or SPARK, along with Creative Commons, have developed and posted a helpful PDF version of the author's addendum that can be printed out and filled in by you. Keep in mind that there are alternatives to traditional publishing models. There are many peer-reviewed, open-access journals which allow authors to retain many, if not all, of their copyrights. Remember to negotiate your right to deposit a pre-print or post-print into your institutional repository and on your own website. Consider UC's eSchoolership, an open-access repository for many of your scholarly publishing and dissemination needs. If you'd like an idea of which publishers allow authors the right to self-archive and deposit pre-prints, post-prints, and even final versions of their work to an open-access repository like UC's own eSchoolership, visit the Sherpa-Romeo searchable database of publisher policies. Issues surrounding copyright and intellectual property are complicated. There are librarians at the UCLA library who are qualified, ready, and able to help you understand your copyrights and to help you negotiate a better author's agreement. Thank you, and we'll see you next time.