Copyright is a type of intellectual property right which protects original creative works, including literary works such as academic articles. Copyright laws grant a copyright owner certain exclusive rights for a designated term of copyright protection (today, typically life of the author plus 70 years). This includes the exclusive right to reproduce, create adaptations of, and distribute a work.
As an author publishing with Taylor & Francis, you can choose how to allocate your rights. We offer two different publishing models – open access and subscription (non-open access) – which each take a different approach to allocation of those rights. During the Taylor & Francis publishing process authors are issued an “author publishing agreement,” through which we obtain the rights needed to publish and disseminate your article based on the model chosen.
It is important to understand differing copyright options as an author, especially with the growth of open access publishing. Here, we describe how copyright licensing or transfer applies for Taylor & Francis open access and subscription (non-open access) publications.
Find out more about article publishing charges, embargo, and license information with the Open Access Cost Finder.
For an open access article, in return for payment of an article publishing charge (APC) by the author or their funder, Taylor & Francis will make the article available on an open access basis, allowing broad access and re-use according to the author’s licensing selections. Taylor & Francis will also validate, produce, disseminate, and act as steward in the long-term curation of the article, including managing any updates or changes to it, so that readers can have confidence that the version they are viewing is the latest version of record. In the open access model, publishing activities are funded by the APC, paid prior to publication, and Taylor & Francis therefore can be more flexible on the rights it needs.
When publishing open access, the author (or copyright owner, if different) signs an author publishing agreement in which they retain copyright and give Taylor & Francis the right to publish the Version of Record of the article. The agreement incorporates the Creative Commons license of the author’s choice, which will dictate what others can do with the article once it has been published. Find out which licenses your chosen journal offers by using the open access cost finder.
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