Copyright in a nutshell
Intellectual works of a creative nature pertaining to literature, music, the figurative arts, architecture, theatre and cinematography, whatever the mode or form of expression, are protected in Italy pursuant to Law 633/1941 and subsequent amendments.
The creator of the work acquires the inalienable and perpetual right to be recognized as its author, to protect the integrity of the work and possibly withdraw it from the market (moral rights), as well as the exclusive right of economic use linked to publication, reproduction, transcription, execution, distribution, communication to the public, translation, or rental/loan of work (property rights).
The rights of economic exploitation are independent of each other and the law allows the author to transfer part or all of them to the publishing house (Law 633/1941, art. 19).
It is therefore not necessary to assign all the exclusive rights to be able to publish.
The author can:
- when signing the publishing contract, ask the publishing house to insert a clause that allows the reuse of his or her work for educational purposes and the possibility of archiving it in the IRIS institutional repository.
- if the contract has already been signed, ask to modify it through an Addendum, i.e. an addition to the contract drawn up
-SPARC Addendum (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition - SPARC is an alliance of universities and institutions committed to promoting Open Access)
- H2020 Addendum - if the contribution has already been published, ask the publishing house for authorization to deposit it in the institutional archive, using for example the modules available in the left bar, Download section:
- Request for deposit of an article
- Request for deposit of a book chapter
The author can publish in his or her preferred publishing venues and at the same time fulfil the open access obligations of the Horizon Europe Programme, maintaining sufficient rights to make their publications available with immediate open access licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY license, or equivalent, in an institutional/disciplinary/generalist repository (Author's Right Retention).
Authors who choose open access decide to make their work freely accessible, maintaining moral and property rights and committing themselves not to assert some of these to prevent free access to the work and its possible reuse.
A license is a legal instrument through which the owner of the rights allows certain uses of his / her work. The most popular licenses are the Creative Commons.
SNS contribution for printed monographs
On the basis of the European obligations for funded projects, of the Scuola Normale Superiore Regulations on open access to scientific literature (arts. 8 and 11) and of the resolution of the Governing Council in the session of 24th September 2021, the Faculty Dean’s authorization of the contribution is subject to the author's retention of the right to publish the text in open access, or reserved with embargo, in the Institutional Repository IRIS.
Asking for the contribution, please fill the google form provided (LINK).
The Research Assessment and Open Science Service will contact the publisher in order to obtain the consent to publish in open access, in the Institutional Repository IRIS, the accepted version or the editorial version of the text.
The Research Assessment and Open Science Service will also contact the Faculty Dean to obtain the relative authorization to proceed.
Useful links
National plan for Open Science (part of the NRP 2021-2027, pages 156-159)
Law 633/1941 and subsequent amendments (Copyright law)
Law 112/2013 (so-called "Bray Law")
Right Retention Strategy