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Copyright and open access

Note that the information on open access publishing below applies to Austrian copyright law.

Copyright

As an author or creator, you are the owner of the copyright to your work, including textual, visual, musical, and cinematic works. You control the copyright and use of your work and define how others (e.g., a publisher) are allowed to use it by sharing it under Creative Commons license.

Many publishers require exclusive rights to publish and use your work, which consequently means that you, as the author, would no longer be allowed to use your work in other ways (e.g., Copyright Transfer Agreements).

Author agreements

To avoid giving away your rights, we recommend not signing any publishing contracts with clauses that require you to transfer all and exclusive rights to others.

Instead, ask the publisher to amend your author agreement so that you retain a non-exclusive right of use (rights retention). This will allow you to republish your work, for example, on a non-profit document server (repository) such as A...repository, under a Creative Commons license.

Right of self-archiving

In addition, since 2015, the right of self-archiving (“Zweitverwertungsrecht”, §37a öUrhG) has been in effect in Austria. It allows authors to self-archive their work—under certain conditions—even if they no longer hold the necessary parts of copyright (“Verwertungsrechte”) to it.

Although this right cannot be excluded by contract, it may be that not every condition for self-archiving your work can be met.

It is best to add an agreement with the publisher to your contract, stating that you retain a non-exclusive right of use, which allows you to make your work freely available on a non-profit repository.

Many publishers now have their own guidelines for self-archiving in repositories. These usually cover the author accepted manuscript (AAM) version, which may be made freely available after a certain period (e.g., 12 or 24 months). Find out in the Open Policy Finder whether, and by which terms, your publisher allows self-archiving.

Contributions to edited volumes

When publishing open access, the legal provision on contributions to collections (“Beiträge zu Sammlungen”, §36 öUrhG) may also be relevant. It allows authors—under certain conditions—to self-archive their works (e.g., texts, images, videos) as part of edited volumes. A collection must appear periodically (e.g., newspaper, journal, yearbook).

Note that this provision can be excluded by contract, and publishers often make use of this. So, make sure you know what terms are included in your author agreement before signing.

Further information

 

All information is provided for reference only and does not constitute or replace legal or other professional advice.