What is rights retention?
Rights Retention is the process whereby the author (the original copyright holder) retains specific rights during the copyright transfer process. Specifically, these rights pertain to making the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) freely available (open access) under a Creative Commons licence.
Traditionally, when researchers publish their work in academic journals, they transfer copyright to the publisher. This transfer of copyright often means that the author gives up many rights to their own work allowing the publisher to retain rights over the content of the publication and in some cases allowing them charge to access the publication.
Rights retention refers to the practice where authors retain certain rights even after their work is published (after the copyright transfer agreement). This includes retaining the right to deposit their AAM in Maynooth University’s Open Access Institutional Repository, MURAL.
Rights retention not only fulfils most funder mandates to publish open access, but also provides full and immediate open access to your most recent publications, maximising your research impact.
What are the benefits?
- When authors hold key rights, authors (rather than publishers) get to make the OA decision. Authors avoid the delay and effort of seeking permission and avoid the risk of a ‘no’ answer.
- Rights retention makes repository-based (“green”) OA faster and more efficient. Many publishers already permit green OA, though often with restrictive terms and conditions. Some don’t permit it at all. Rights retention overcomes those obstacles.
By streamlining green OA, rights retention benefits early-career researchers (ECRs) by ensuring compliance with their research funders who mandate OA publications. It also enhances their competitiveness for promotion and tenure committees who may favour certain non-OA journals. Green OA allows ECRs address both.
Rights Retention is not publishing Open Access (where the final published version is available Open Access on the publishers website) which would involve paying a "Article Processing Charge" (APC) or making use of one of the Open Access Publishing Agreements negotiated by the Irish Research eLibrary (IREL). Rights Retention refers to the "Accepted Manuscript "version.
MU Rights Retention Statement
In May 2024 Maynooth University adopted a statement on Rights Retention. It outlines MU's commitment to Open Access and Rights Retention, and contains useful, practical instructions on implementing Rights Retention.
Impact of MU's Rights Retention Policy
Since May 2024 you will be able to retain key rights over the author accepted manuscript of your paper in a journal or conference proceeding, rather than signing them away to your publisher. You will also be able to retain your rights over your author accepted manuscript of a chapter in an edited collection such as a book.
This is achieved with one simple action. Include the following Rights Retention Statement in the funding acknowledgement section or in the first footnote or endnote and in any cover letter/note of all submissions of your (co-)authored papers to journals, conference proceedings, and edited collections:
“For the purpose of open access, the author has applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version of this paper, arising from this submission.”
You will need to continue to deposit the author accepted manuscript of your papers and chapters into MURAL as soon as possible after acceptance but before publication.
By including the Rights Retention Statement, you will retain inter alia the right to disseminate your author accepted manuscript by depositing it in a repository and providing open access from the day of first online publication under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.
Rights Retention & Dissemination of your work
Although you automatically hold the copyright when you write a paper or chapter in an edited collection, if you publish it in a subscription-based journal or in a book that is not Open Access, you may be asked to sign a publishing agreement in which you give all or part of your copyrights to your publisher, who now holds them in exclusivity.
In practice, this means that you cannot use your own work without explicit written permission from your publisher. For example, you cannot use any of your content on Wikipedia, translate your own work into another language or another format such as Braille, distribute a copy of your work through a repository from the day of first publication, or share your work with colleagues by uploading it to an academic social network such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate. Conversely, a publisher can do all of these things without first seeking your permission, and more: they can re-package your content for use by other providers, including commercial ones, and they can alter or reformat your manuscript (e.g. include your work in an anthology) as well as sub-licence all or any rights they choose to anyone else.
Rights retention allows you to retain key rights over your author accepted manuscript, rather than signing them away to your publisher.
In particular, you will retain the right to disseminate your author accepted manuscript by depositing it in a repository and providing open access from the day of first publication under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.
(Sheffield Hallam University Library) https://libguides.shu.ac.uk/OpenAccess/rightsretention
Rights Retention for Researchers (2023)
How do I apply Rights Retention?
• Authors need to specify that a Creative Commons licence is required. The following options can be used: “Authors can use the pre-submission letter before definitively deciding to submit to a particular journal as a means to ‘sound out’ potential choices of journals (e.g., a selection of journals covering a particular subject specialism) until they find those that provide clarity.”(cOAlitionS)
• “Authors can use the submission cover letter template to accompany their article manuscript as part of their submission to a journal.”(cOAlitionS)
Instructions are available in the cOAlitionS user guide and letter templates are available from cOAlitionS here.
Librarian
Library Research Support Homepage
- Research Support GuidesThese guides cover a range of topics including Open Access.
Rights Retention Resources
- Worldwide Rights Retention OA PoliciesThis is a list of institutional rights-retention open-access policies (IRRPs).
- Plan S Rights Retention StrategycOAlition S has developed a Rights Retention Strategy to give researchers supported by a cOAlition S Organisation the freedom to submit manuscripts for publication to their journal of choice, including subscription journals, whilst remaining fully compliant with Plan S.
Rights Retention Copyright and Publishing
When publishing open access, usually you retain copyright and grant the publisher a licence to publish your work. When not publishing open access you may be asked to sign a Copyright Transfer Agreement, transferring some or all of your rights in your work that you created to the publisher. After transfer of rights, you can only reuse your work in ways set out in the publishing agreement. For example, the publisher may allow you to deposit your accepted manuscript in a repository, but they may impose an embargo on access and not allow a Creative Commons licence. Copyright Transfer limits open access and limits open research.
