What are Rights Retention and Secondary Publishing Rights?
Rights retention (RR) and secondary publishing rights (SPR) are powerful tools to boost the achievement of open access to research.
Rights retention means that authors (or their institutions) retain copyright in their work when entering into a publication agreement with a publisher, in order to ensure that the work can immediately be made open access. In other words, rather than giving away their rights, the author keeps the rights needed to enable open access to their work.
A Secondary Publishing Right refers to the legal right of authors (or their institutions) to make a work openly available after or in parallel to publication of a formal version - usually the peer-reviewed Author’s Accepted Manuscript (AAM) or the final, typeset version, known as the Version of Record (VoR). A right of secondary publication can be found in a range of national laws, such as copyright, science, technology & innovation, economics and culture, in a growing number of countries in Europe.
Taken together, the concepts of rights retention and secondary publishing rights support the enablement of open science.
What is EIFL’s position on Rights Retention and Secondary Publishing Rights?
EIFL supports the adoption of institutional policies on rights retention and the inclusion of a secondary publishing right in national law.
Rights Retention
- EIFL encourages institutions to adopt a policy on rights retention (institutions can in turn support authors by making publishers aware of institutional rights retention policies).
- We encourage librarians to:
- raise awareness among researchers of rights retention policies;
- inform authors on how to retain their copyright and make open licensing the default option for sharing research outputs;
- network with other institutions to share expertise and experience;
- advocate for legislative solutions to include rights retention in national open science and technology policies (to provide legal backing to help researchers ensure their work is available in open access).
Secondary Publishing Rights
EIFL encourages librarians to:
- be informed - learn about national SPR initiatives;
- raise awareness of the opportunities and challenges of introducing SPR - challenges include the imposition of embargo periods, limitations on the type of scholarly works;
- start working towards the adoption of SPR legislation in your country - zero embargo, applicable to all types of publicly funded research, all types of outputs, and all versions, including the Version of Record (essential for citation purposes).
Read more
Rights Retention and Secondary Publishing Rights. An EIFL Guide for Libraries
- Online version (with additional resources and FAQs)
EIFL webinar: Rights Retention and Secondary Publishing Rights, June 2024 (webinar recording and slides).