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Author Rights

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Scholarship & Publishing

Copyright protects your creation. When you own the copyright in a work, you control how it is used in order to protect its value. Others who want to use the work have to buy or otherwise get your permission. 

Generally, an original work is automatically protected by copyright the moment you create it. By registering your copyright, you receive a certificate issued by the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) that can be used in court as evidence that you own it. 

Your copyright exists in Canada during your lifetime and for 50 years following your death. After that, the work is in the public domain, and anyone can use it. This is true for most works, but there are exceptions. 

When you are ready to publish, be careful not to sign away your author rights to publishers. The library has expertise in scholarly publishing both as purchasers of content and as open access publishers ourselves. We can help you: 

Get assistance

Services for faculty & instructors 

We are here to help you navigate the complex and often contradictory policies of publishers, journals, pre-prints servers, and funders. We can help clarify copyright and intellectual property rights in Canada and other jurisdictions.   

We offer: 

Resources

Upcoming Workshops

We offer a variety of workshops to support your scholarship through the Open Scholarship workshop series.

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    The library is committed to ensuring that members of our user community with disabilities have equal access to our services and resources and that their dignity and independence is always respected. If you encounter a barrier and/or need an alternate format, please fill out our Library Print and Multimedia Alternate-Format Request Form. Contact us if you’d like to provide feedback: lib.a11y@uoguelph.ca