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Copyright Basics

About

Understanding copyright and your rights as an author is complicated. This section is meant to help clarify certain aspects of copyright, but as always, please contact a librarian if you have additional questions. Also check out these useful guides:

Key Points

Copyright provides the rules regarding ownership and use of creative works. Copyright law protects the author's original works for a limited period. And ownership of the copyright includes the right to control the use of that work.

Copyright owners hold specific rights, but not all rights:

  • Reproduction of works
  • Distribution of copies
  • Making of derivative works
  • Public performance and display of works

In addition, certain mediums have moral rights (such as visual art) or prevention of destruction. And copyright owners have rights to prevent anyone from circumventing technological protection systems that control access to their work.

Publisher Contracts and Copyright Agreements

SHERPA RoMEO provides information about the copyright policies, open access, and self-archiving policies of publishers. This is a great source of information about specific publisher's copyright policies, and can be useful to find out what rights an author has before or after signing a copyright agreement.

Visit the SHERPA/RoMEO website to find publishers allowing the deposit of a published version/PDF in Institutional Repositories.

At MUSC, we encourage our authors to submit their work to MEDICA@MUSC.

MUSC Policies