Licence to Publish - Notes for Contributors

The Royal Society of Chemistry has prepared the following notes explaining why we require authors of journal articles to grant us licences to publish their articles. 

Note 1:   We have three main reasons for requiring authors to grant licences in respect of their contributions to the journal:

(a) We require them as our authority to publish.

(b) They help us to protect the material we publish against unauthorised copying and other misuse.

(c) They ensure that requests from third parties to republish all or part of the material we publish can be efficiently dealt with (e.g. Reproduction Rights Organisations such as the Copyright Licensing Agency and the Copyright Clearance Center and document delivery suppliers).   Such requests are increasingly significant as electronic delivery media become more important.

Note 2: Please note that copyright in the Work is retained by the Owner.

Note 3: Examples of republication/reproduction for which the RSC does not require permission in advance (Clause 5) include: use of the Work in reviews, reprint books, collected volumes of the published work of the Author(s); inclusion in company brochures or pamphlets; use in lectures, lecture notes, press releases, approved classroom courses (including distribution on a not-for-profit basis and storage in electronic reserves); use for internal company training purposes.

Note 4: If the Work contains material that is someone else's copyright (Clause 2) you must obtain permission to use this material in accordance with the publication licence for this material (in both printed and electronic forms) and you must ensure that this material is clearly identified and acknowledged within the text. It is not necessary to submit cleared permissions with the manuscript or Licence to Publish but they should be retained for possible future reference.