The Scholarly Publishing Office of the University of Michigan, University Library is committed to intellectual property policies and practices that promote authorial and institutional control of scholarly assets. To this end, SPO applies the following guidelines to the scholarship it both publishes and distributes.
For works for which there is an existing publisher and for which SPO serves as the electronic distributor, such as an existing print journal that is migrating to electronic form, SPO allows the original publisher to determine rights agreements. That said, it encourages all of its partners to consider leaving the majority of rights with authors and to request that non-exclusive publication rights be granted in keeping with the principles outlined above.
In the case that SPO is the original publisher, the author retains copyright in the work and may republish it elsewhere without permission of the Library, provided that later publications include the following notice:
"This Work was previously published as . . . through the University of Michigan Library Scholarly Publishing Office, http://spo.umdl.umich.edu."
SPO asks that the author grant to the Library the non-exclusive and irrevocable right to publish the final version of the work in perpetuity:
a. on the World Wide Web, through the Scholarly Publishing Office;
b. by means of digital technology that may succeed the World Wide Web as media through which the Library provides the contents of to the public;
Furthermore, we require that the author warrant that the work is original and that it contains no matter that is defamatory or otherwise in violation of law and of the rights of others. Should the work contain any copyrighted material of others, SPO requires that the author promptly obtain written permission from the copyright proprietor and to include the permission with the work when it is sent to SPO.
SPO supports the goals of the Creative Commons ( http://www.creativecommons.org) in facilitating explicit authorial assertion of rights and permissions and encourages all of its authors to create Creative Commons licenses.
SPO also believes that wide and open access is advantageous to both the creators and consumers of scholarship and encourages authors to seek other non-exclusive publication venues should they so desire. SPO particularly encourages its authors to deposit their works in open-access institutional and disciplinary repositories.
Last updated August 1, 2005.