In an age of widespread information exchange, copyright and licensing are essential components for protecting an author’s intellectual property.
These legal agreements give assurance to the author that their work is being reused and distributed properly. Preprints, despite not undergoing the typical peer review process, are still subject to copyright and licensing laws. This article will provide an overview of copyright and licensing in the context of preprints.
What do we mean by copyright and licensing?
Although connected, copyright and licensing are two distinct ideas.
Copyright is the inherent right granted to the author to have full control over their intellectual property. In contrast, licensing is the legal permission given by the author as to how others can distribute, reuse, and build upon their work.
Together, copyright and licensing facilitate democratic access to knowledge while respecting and upholding the ethical dimensions of scholarly publishing.
Publishing ethics policies for preprints
Although preprints are versions of research works that do not undergo the traditional peer review process, it’s still important that the research involved—whether ongoing or complete—is protected by ethical policies.
So, what are the publishing ethics policies for Preprints?
Preprints.org adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines. Although COPE does not cover preprints specifically, many of the same principles still apply, such as:
- Authors must accurately present their research findings and include an objective discussion on the significance of such findings.
- Plagiarism, data fabrication, image manipulation, knowingly providing incorrect information, copyright infringement, inaccurate author attributions, attempts to inappropriately manipulate the screening process, failures to declare conflicts of interest, fraud, and libel are not permitted.
- The posting of the submitted materials must not be illegal.
- Manuscripts containing research conducted on humans or experimental animals must follow the Declaration of Helsinki and contain details of approval from a research ethics committee. The project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board must be cited in the “Methods” section.
- The informed consent of research participants must be obtained if necessary. Authors must be able to provide a (redacted) copy of the consent form.
Now the ethical dimensions have been covered, let’s look at copyright and intellectual property in the context of Preprints.
Copyright and intellectual property policies for preprints
It’s crucial that within the academic community the intellectual property rights of researchers, scientists, publishers, and others are respected. Preprints.org fully supports and adheres to this principle.
Before uploading or reproducing any published material (figures, schemes, tables, or any extract of a text) at Preprints.org, permission from the copyright holder should be sought.
Permission is required for the following:
- Your own research published by other publishers and for which you do not retain the copyright.
- Substantial extracts from research by any authors.
- The use of tables, graphs, charts, schemes, and artworks if they are unaltered or altered with minor changes.
- Photographs for which you do not hold the copyright.
Permission is not required for the following:
- The reconstruction of your own table with data already published elsewhere. Please note that, in this case, you must cite the source of the data in the form of either “Data from…” or “Adapted from…”.
- Short quotes that are considered fair use, and thus do not require permission, must also be properly cited.
- Graphs, charts, schemes, and artwork that have been completely redrawn by the authors and are altered beyond recognition.
What license is used for Preprints.org?
There are many different types of licenses when it comes to publishing research as open access. However, all preprints published as open access using a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 license.
This license offers maximum visibility and attribution, since the author’s research can be freely downloaded, distributed, and reused, so long as both author and preprint are cited.
Before publication, all authors must agree to:
- Grant Preprints.org a perpetual, non-exclusive license to distribute this preprint.
- Confirm they have the right to grant this license.
- Acknowledge that submissions cannot be completely removed once accepted by Preprints.org and may appear on websites other than Preprints.org.
Policy on conflicts of interest
Just like with peer-reviewed research, conflicts of interest can arise in the production of a preprint. Although conflicts of interests are rare, it’s good to know what constitutes a conflict of interest and how to declare one.
What constitutes a conflict of interest?
Preprints.org applies the following ICMJE definition of a conflict of interest: “A conflict of interest exists when professional judgment concerning a primary interest (such as patients’ welfare or the validity of research) may be influenced by a secondary interest (such as financial gain). Perceptions of conflict of interest are as important as actual conflicts of interest.”
Declaring a conflict of interest
Authors can disclose potential conflicts of interest via the online submission system during the submission process or via the MDPI Disclosure Form. A summary statement must be included in the manuscript in a separate section. This section should be entitled “Conflicts of Interest” and placed just before the reference list.
Protecting your research—no matter its form
A benefit of preprints is that they enable important, sometimes preliminary research to quickly enter the academic ecosystem wherever it’s needed.
Despite not undergoing typical peer review, this form of research and the corresponding author’s right should still be protected. By publishing your research with Preprints.org, you can rest assured knowing that the correct ethical and intellectual property policies are behind the publication of your work.
Copyright and licensing are necessary to protect authors’ works in today’s world of widespread information exchange. For more information, see this article on copyright and Creative Commons licenses in the context of open access.
