John Benjamins Copyright Policy

(Last updated: 17 January 2023)

It is the policy of John Benjamins Publishing Company to acquire the copyright to all contributions in its books and journals. Ownership of copyright by one central organization ensures maximum protection against infringement; it also ensures that requests by third parties to reprint a contribution, or part of it, are handled efficiently and in accordance with a general policy which is sensitive both to international copyright legislation and to encouraging the dissemination of knowledge. 

Authors are required to ensure that they have obtained all the necessary rights/permissions for any third-party materials used in their publication with John Benjamins. Those rights should cover perpetual world-wide distribution in print and electronic format.

The author of an article in a journal or edited book volume retains the following rights:

• The right to be identified as the Author of the article whenever and wherever the article is published.
• All proprietary rights other than copyright.
• The right to make copies of all or part of the published article for use by the author themselves in teaching, provided that these copies are not offered for sale.
• The right to make copies of (parts of) the published article for circulation within the institution that employs the author.
• The right to make and distribute copies of the published article to individual research colleagues, for their own personal use. This may not be done commercially or through mass distribution channels such as, e.g., websites, list serves or e-mail lists.
• The right to present the published article at a meeting or conference and to distribute copies of the article to the delegates attending the meeting.
• The right to re-use portions or excerpts in other works by the author themselves.
• The right to use all or part of the material, after publication, in any monograph by the author, provided that John Benjamins Publishing Company is notified of this re-use, a citation to the prior, published article is included, and a notice is added that John Benjamins Publishing Company should be contacted for permission to re-use or reprint the material in any form.

Self-archiving options

Authors of articles in journals

• At any time, the author may post the ‘author submitted manuscript’ (i.e., the author’s original version before any selection or peer review) on the author’s personal website, the website/institutional repository of the author’s institute and/or funder, and on electronic pre-print servers, including subject-based repositories and services such as Academia.edu, ResearchGate and Mendeley.

  Upon acceptance, this pre-print should be accompanied by a statement that the article is accepted for publication, providing information on the journal in which it is to appear, and after publication, also the DOI and a link to the Version of Record on the publisher’s platform.

• After publication of the Version of Record by the publisher, the author may post the ‘author accepted manuscript’ (i.e., the final version submitted to the journal by the author, after peer review and revision, but before any copy-editing or typesetting) on the author’s personal website, the website/institutional repository of the author’s institute and/or funder, and on electronic pre-print servers, including subject-based repositories and services such as Academia.edu, ResearchGate and Mendeley, etc.

  If required by an author-affiliated institution or a funder, such as for instance those participating in Plan S, the author is permitted to make this ‘author accepted manuscript’ available under the CC BY license.

  This manuscript version should include and be accompanied by a reference to the published Version of Record, providing information on the journal in which it appeared, including the DOI and a link to the Version of Record on the publisher’s platform.

• If the journal article was published in Open Access through payment of a fee or in a journal that offers Open Access by default, the author and anyone else may re-use the article within the limits of the specific license under which the article was made Open Access. In most cases, this will be either the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) or the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial ( CC BY-NC) license.

  If the article was not published Open Access, the author is not permitted to distribute the published Version or Record or any of the PDFs or other files provided by the publisher (including proofs and offprints) to third parties, or post them on the internet, or in openly accessible repositories or services such as Academia.edu, ResearchGate and Mendeley, etc. 

Authors of articles in books (edited volumes)

• At any time, the author may post the ‘author submitted manuscript’ (i.e., the author’s original version before any selection or peer review) on the author’s personal website, the website/institutional repository of the author’s institute and/or funder, and on electronic pre-print servers, including subject-based repositories and services such as Academia.edu, ResearchGate and Mendeley.

  Upon acceptance, this pre-print should be accompanied by a statement that the article is accepted for publication, providing information on the book volume in which it is to appear, and after publication, also the DOI and a link to the Version of Record on the publisher’s platform.

• With an embargo of 12 months after the publication date of the book, the author may post the ‘author accepted manuscript’ (i.e., the final version submitted to the volume editor by the author, after peer review and revision, but before any copy-editing or typesetting) on the author’s personal website, the website/institutional repository of the author’s institute and/or funder, and on electronic pre-print servers, including subject-based repositories and services such as Academia.edu, ResearchGate and Mendeley, provided that this services does not charge a fee for access to the article.

  This manuscript version should include a statement that it is under copyright, and be accompanied by a reference to the published Version of Record, providing information on the book volume in which it appeared, including the DOI and a link to the Version of Record on the publisher’s platform.

• If the book in which the article is included was published in Open Access, the authors and anyone else may re-use the articles within the limits of the specific license under which the book was made Open Access. In most cases, this will be the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license.

  If the book was not published Open Access, the author is not permitted to distribute the published Version or Record or any of the PDFs or other files provided by the publisher (including proofs and offprints) to third parties, or post them on the internet, or in openly accessible repositories or services such as Academia.edu, ResearchGate and Mendeley, etc.

For any other (re-)use permissions, please contact the Rights & Permissions department of John Benjamins Publishing Company.

For more information on Open Access options, visit our Open Access information page.