NIH Full Comments about Copyright Retention
1) Whose approval do I need to submit my article to PubMed Central?
Authors own the original copyrights to materials they
write. Consistent with individual arrangements with authors' employing
institutions, authors often transfer some or all of these rights
to the publisher when the journal agrees to publish their article.
Some publishers may ask authors to transfer copyrights for a manuscript
when it is first submitted to a journal for review.
Authors should work with the publisher before any rights are transferred
to ensure that all conditions of the NIH Public Access Policy
can be met. Authors should avoid signing any agreements with publishers
that do not allow the author to comply with the NIH Public Access
Policy.
Federal employees always may submit their final peer-reviewed manuscript to PubMed Central, because government works are not subject to copyright protection in the United States.
2) Can NIH provide language that could be used in a copyright agreement between an author or institution and a publisher?
NIH can provide an example. Individual copyright arrangements can take many forms, and authors and their institutions should continue to manage such arrangements as they have in the past. However, in order to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy, you must make sure that the agreement allows the accepted peer-reviewed manuscript to be deposited with the NIH upon acceptance of publication and made available for public posting on PubMed Central no later than 12 months after journal publication.Institutions and investigators may wish to develop particular copyright agreement terms in consultation with their own legal counsel or other applicable official at their institution, as appropriate. As an example, the kind of language that an author or institution might add to a copyright agreement includes the following:
Your Institution or professional society may have developed specific model language for this purpose, as well."Journal acknowledges that Author retains the right to provide a copy of the final manuscript to the NIH upon acceptance for Journal publication, for public archiving in PubMed Central as soon as possible but no later than 12 months after publication by Journal."
3) A publisher says that an NIH-funded article cannot be deposited under the NIH Public Access Policy. What should I do?
Publishers may ask authors to transfer copyrights for a manuscript when it is first submitted to a journal for review, and/or at the time it is accepted for publication. Authors should work with the publisher before any rights are transferred, to ensure that all conditions of the NIH Public Access Policy can be met. You should check with your institutional official, who may wish to consult with your institution's legal counsel, to determine how the copyright transfer agreement that the publisher proposes you sign impacts your ability to comply with the Policy.