EMPOWERING STUDENTS: Before You Sign That Contract! --- Are you planning to publish your work? Read the publisher's contract carefully. Think about how you might want to use your work in the future. I. COPYRIGHT GRANTS YOU FIVE RIGHTS (THE BUNDLE) Your Work: Your "Bundle of Five Rights" 1) Reproduce the copyrighted work 2) Prepare derivative works based upon the work 3) Distribute copies of the work to the public 4) Perform the copyrighted work publicly 5) Display the copyrighted work publicly You can transfer any one (or all) of the bundle of rights to a publisher. This is done through a contract or agreement. Read the publisher's contract carefully. Some contracts request exclusive rights to your work! Which means that the publisher, not you, would own the right to make copies, prepare derivative works, etc. **You no longer own the bundle** II. THINK: FUTURE USE OF YOUR WORK - Future work?: Will you want to use and develop your own work without restriction or reuse portions in a subsequent work? - Classroom?: Will you want to place the work on course sites or make a copy for students or colleagues? - Online access?: Will you want to deposit the work in an online archive for others to read, comment, and collaborate with you? Your contract with the publisher may give you rights you to: - Place your work in an open access repository - Put the version on your personal website - Use it for future publications, like a thesis or book 73% of journals already allow posting to personal websites, institutional repositories, or other online sharing (figure from a review of 1,500 different publishers' contracts). And, publishers agreements are negotiable. Authors can negotiate! III. NEGOTIATE FOR YOUR RIGHTS Amendments to the publisher's agreement may take place in two ways: 1) Amend the agreement by striking through unfavorable language and replacing it with new language directly in the agreement. 2) Supplement the agreement with an "author addendum" that includes terms superseding any contradicting terms in the contract. IV. KEEP A COPY OF YOUR AGREEMENT Keep a copy of the agreement for your records. When questions arise about rights to use your work, the answer often lies in the agreement. IV. MORE INFORMATION Want to learn more about the author addendum? Or do you want to help create your own addendum for your own work? Visit Harvard's Office for Scholarly Communication (https://osc.hul.harvard.edu) Want to know more about publishing, contract negotiation and open access? Listen to Harvard Professors Gary King and Stuart Shieber's video, "Office Hours" (https://youtu.be/jD6CcFxRelY). Office for Scholarly Communication Wadsworth House 1341 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 Phone: (617) 495-4089 Fax: (617) 495-0370 Email: osc@harvard.edu Harvard Library