Copyright Act
In most countries of the world, authors enjoy protection of their intellectual property that appears in books, journal articles and parts thereof, such as illustrations, plans, tables and animations. Protected works include literary and scientific works, such as writings, speeches and computer programs. Only personal intellectual creations are protected.
The person who writes one of the aforementioned works is defined as the creator/author. Co-authorship applies if two or more persons create a work together.
Notice of Copyright is printed in general on the verso of the title page of a book or on the header or footer of a journal article. Notice of Copyright provides information regarding the date of first publication of the work and the holder of copyright. Proper notice of copyright helps to protect the integrity of the work and to fight copyright infringement.
Contents of copyright
Moral Rights cover an author’s authority to decide whether his/her work should be published and whether the published work should bear the author’s name.
Exploitation Rights entitle an author to decide whether copies of the work should be reproduced (Right of Reproduction) and whether these copies should be offered to the public (Right of Distribution). Right of Reproduction is the right to make copies of the work, irrespective of method or number. Right of Distribution is the right to offer to the public the aforementioned produced copies.
Author must obtain the copyright of the work and that the work has not heretofore been published in whole or in part.
ISCI asks the author to sign a publishing agreement granting ISCI the sole right to reproduce, publish, distribute and make available to the public the work in print and electronic format. Authors and the publisher should always define their relationship in a publishing agreement. ISCI offers a large variety of such contracts for all kind of works.
The work published by ISCI is made immediately available worldwide under an open access license. This means:
- everyone has free and unlimited access to the full-text of the work;
- everyone is free to re-use the published material if proper accreditation/citation of the original publication is given;
- authors retain the copyright of the work.