Completing the copyright form for your article
For most IOP Publishing (IOP) hybrid journals (journals which offer the choice of publishing on a subscription basis or on a gold open access basis), we generally require you to transfer (assign) the copyright in your subscription article to IOP (or to the relevant publishing partner) before acceptance of the article. For articles published on a gold open access basis, we generally only require that IOP is granted a non-exclusive licence. Please ensure you check the terms of the specific journal’s copyright form, as this does vary in some journals.
For most IOP fully gold open access journals (journals which only offer publication on a gold open access basis), we generally require you to grant a non-exclusive licence of the copyright in your article to IOP (or the relevant publishing partner) before acceptance of the article. However, please ensure you check the terms of the specific journal’s copyright form, as this does vary in some journals.
Following submission of your revised article, we will ask you to submit electronically the journal’s copyright form via the Author Centre. IOP cannot formally accept your article for publication until your fully signed copyright form has been received, along with any required permissions (see next section).
The transfer or licence of copyright in your article only takes effect from the date on which the article is accepted for publication. If you withdraw your article, or if it is not accepted, the transfer or licence does not take effect.
The main features of the copyright form are that:
Authors transfer the worldwide copyright in the subscription-only article to IOP (or our publishing partner) in all formats and media (note that this applies to most of our hybrid journals).
Authors grant a worldwide non-exclusive licence of the copyright in the gold open access article to IOP (or our publishing partner) in all formats and media.
Authors assert their moral right to be identified as the authors of the article.
For subscription-only articles, IOP grants back to authors certain rights; for details please see our Author Rights Policy.
IOP currently publishes gold open access articles under the CC-BY licence.
Provision is made for situations where copyright is not owned by the authors, for example an author’s employer, US government employees or Crown copyright.
Provision is made for multi-author articles, in that only one author should submit the copyright form but they should have obtained the verbal agreement of all the other authors (and any other copyright owner) beforehand to its terms and submission of the form.
As well as addressing matters of copyright, the copyright forms contain assertions that:
- The article is the original work of the authors.
- The article has not been published previously and is not currently under consideration for another journal.
- Each of the authors has made a material contribution to the article.
- All authors have received the final version of the article and have agreed to it being submitted.
- The content of the paper is not defamatory, fabricated or an infringement of third-party rights.
- All required permissions have been obtained in writing.
For more details on the copyright form and how to complete it, please email permissions@ioppublishing.org.