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Copyright

In order for your publications to be made freely accessible in LUCRIS you need to own the copyright to them. Presented below are a few copyright-related starting points based on a rough classification of different types of publications.

The purpose of copyright law is to balance the author’s protection needs against the user’s access needs. Therefore, the law is combined with reasonable exceptions and limitations for the “common good”. This means that, among other things, the author’s consent is not required to make copies for personal use or to give references and citations from works which have been made public.

If authors have signed over their economic rights, decisions on how their work is utilised no longer fall under their authority, but rather the authority of the publisher. The publisher can eliminate legal limitations through a licensing agreement.

Copyright for different publication types

Published within Lund University

The author owns the copyright and can make publications freely accessible unless a special agreement prohibiting this has been signed.

International scholarly journals

The author has commonly signed an agreement with the publisher in which they have partially or wholly signed over their rights. Most major publishers still allow articles to be made freely accessible as long as certain conditions have been met.

Check your agreement with the publisher and the information at their webbpage or in SHERPA/RoMEO. You are always welcome to contoct your subject library or the Publicera group at the University Library: publicera [at] lub [dot] lu [dot] se (publicera[at]lub[dot]lu[dot]se).

SHERPA/RoMEO

Doctoral theses

Monograph doctoral theses published by the department: the author owns the copyright and the work can be made freely accessible.

Monograph doctoral theses published by a publishing house: contact the publisher/editor and ask for permission.

Compilation theses: the author owns the copyright to the summarising introduction which can be made freely accessible. Access to other included publications will be determined by the agreements entered into with the respective publishers. LU has general agreements with the following publishers: IEEE, Elsevier, Cambridge University Press and Portland Press.

Books, anthology papers, conference papers that have been published, journals/publishers without policies, reports, among other things

Contact the publisher/editor and ask for permission. The following is a suggestion for a letter:

Dear [name],

I am writing to ask for permission to self-archive a copy of my article [article title], published in [publication name, volume, issue, pages]. The copy will be made freely accessible in LUCRIS (www.lucris.lu.se), the research information system at Lund University.

Best regards, [name]

Before publishing your work in a journal

If you are in a situation where you can choose between several equivalent journals to which your manuscript can be sent, make sure to find out their policy on free accessibility and self-archiving. Then choose a journal that allows self-archiving. SHERPA/RoMEO is a database that compiles publishers’ policies on self-archiving.

When your manuscript has been accepted for publication in a journal, you will need to sign an agreement (sometimes already in conjunction with electronic submission). Read the agreement carefully and make sure, at the very least, that you retain the right to self-archive your accepted manuscript in the University’s institutional repository as well as the right to use the article in any future doctoral thesis and when lecturing. Remember, an increasing number of research funders require free accessibility of research results.

Please use the SPACR Author Addendum if the publishing agreement is not satisfactory.

SPARC Author Addendum

Before publishing a book

If you publish a book, or contribute a chapter to a book that is published outside Lund University, you can ask the publisher to approve self-archiving at an agreed date after the book has been published (for example one year). This type of publication requires a separate request for each piece of work.