- If
I transfer copyright to PNAS, what rights do I have?
As a PNAS author, you and your employing institution or company retain
extensive rights for use of your materials and intellectual property.
You retain these rights and permissions without having to obtain explicit
permission from PNAS, provided that you cite the original source and
copyright notice:
- The right to post a PDF of your article on your
web site or that of your employer's institution (provided that the institution
is nonprofit).
- The right to make electronic or hard copies
of articles for your personal use, including classroom use,
or for the personal use of colleagues, provided those copies
are not for sale and are not distributed in a systematic way
outside of your employing institution.
- The right to post and update a preprint version of your article
on a public electronic server such as the World Wide Web. See the
information on electronic preprints below.
- The right to permit others to use your original figures or tables
published in PNAS for noncommercial and educational use (i.e.,
in a review article, in a book that is not for sale), provided
that the original source and copyright notice are cited. Third
parties need not ask PNAS for permission to use figures and tables
for such use.
- The right, after publication in PNAS, to use all or part of your
article in a printed compilation of your own works, such as collected
writings or lecture notes.
- If your article is a "work for hire" made within the scope of
your employment, your employer may use all or part of the information
in your article for intracompany use.
- The right to include your article in your thesis or dissertation.
- The right to present all or part of your paper at a meeting or
conference, including ones that are webcast, and to give copies
of your paper to meeting attendees before or after publication
in PNAS. For interactions with the media prior to publication,
see the PNAS
Policy on Media Coverage.
- The right to publish a new or extended version of your paper
provided that it is sufficiently different to be considered a new
work.
- The right to expand your article into book-length form for publication.
- The right to reuse your original figures and tables in your future
works.
- Patent and trademark rights or rights to any process or procedure
described in your article.
For other
uses by authors, please contact PNAS at PNASpermissions{at}nas.edu.
- How
do I obtain a PNAS copyright assignment form?
You may download the PDF at www.pnas.org/misc/copyright.pdf.
- How
do I obtain permission to use previously published material in my paper?
Please use our sample
letter to ask any third party owner of copyright for written permission
in advance for the use in print and electronic formats of any of their
text, illustrations, graphics, or other material, in your PNAS article.
- What
if I am not the only author?
If practical, all coauthors should sign the copyright
assignment form. If not, you must secure the permission of your
coauthors to act on their behalf, and sign the form.
- What
happens if PNAS does not publish my article?
If the paper is not published in PNAS, the rights remain with the
author as original copyright holder.
- Can
I post my article on the Internet?
Yes, you may post the PDF of your article on a personal
web site, or portion of a site, either owned by you or at your institution
(provided that the institution is nonprofit), and devoted to you and
your work, provided that you include a link to the PNAS web site.
For questions, please contact PNASpermissions{at}pnas.edu.
Please note: If you had to obtain someone else's permission to publish,
for example, a figure in your paper, you may need to get further permission
from them before posting the paper on your web site.
- How
do I obtain a PDF of my article?
You may download the PDF from the PNAS web site if
your institution has a site license if or if you have a personal subscription.
Or, you may buy a copy of the PDF via pay per view on the web. Unfortunately,
we cannot provide individual PDFs to authors. If this poses a particular
problem, please contact PNASpermissions{at}nas.edu.
- Can I use my article in my dissertation or thesis without asking
permission?
Yes, provided that you cite the original source and copyright notice.
- Can I use my original figures or tables in my future works without
asking permission?
Yes, provided that you cite the original source and copyright notice.
- Can I make copies of my paper for my lectures, classroom teaching,
and other educational use?
Yes, provided that you cite the original source and copyright notice.
- How can I show my article to my colleagues?
We prefer that you send them a link to your paper
at PNAS Online or on your web site. PNAS does not currently allow
articles to be systematically distributed as PDFs by e-mail, posted
on listservs, or placed in open archives. Please remember that the
presentation of the article (i.e., the typographical layout as a
PDF and the links and features of the HTML version) remains under
PNAS copyright.
- Can I reprint my article in a collection of papers?
Yes, if the collection is in print, and if it is
a collection of your own papers. Publishers seeking permission to
include your paper in a themed collection of work by a number of
authors, for example, must obtain permission from PNAS (except when
the work is not for sale). Please remember that if you needed permission
from a third party when the paper was originally published—for example,
to include a figure—you may need to obtain a new permission.
- Can I post and update my article on a preprint
server?
Yes, you may post and update your article on preprint
and e-print servers as long as the PDF or HTML files created by PNAS
are not used. Any posting made or updated after acceptance of the
article for publication in PNAS must include a link to the paper
in PNAS Online.
A preprint of your article does not count as prior
publication for PNAS. You do not need to remove e-prints from publicly
available servers (including your own web pages) after your article
has been accepted for publication.
- Can others (nonauthor third parties) use my original figures
or tables in their works without asking PNAS for permission?
Yes, PNAS automatically permits others to use your
original figures or tables published in PNAS for noncommercial and
educational use (i.e., in a review article, in a book that is not
for sale), provided that the original source and copyright notice
are cited. Commercial reuse of figures and tables (i.e., in promotional
materials, in a textbook for sale) requires permission from PNAS.
- Can the news media use my figures without asking PNAS for permission?
Yes, journalists may use original figures from
your PNAS article to illustrate news stories. Written permission
from PNAS is not required; however, all figures should be cited as
copyright Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA .
Figures may not be used to illustrate news stories unrelated to a
given PNAS article without express written permission from PNAS.
To obtain high-resolution versions of figures, PNASnews{at}nas.edu.
- Where do I send requests for permission that I receive from others?
Please forward requests to reuse all or part of your
article to PNASpermissions{at}nas.edu.
You may inform others that permission is automatically granted for
them to use your original figures or tables published in PNAS for
any noncommercial and educational use (i.e., in a review article,
in a book that is not for sale), provided that the original source
and copyright notice are cited.
- How do I obtain permission to reprint material from PNAS?
Please forward permissions requests to PNASpermissions{at}nas.edu.
- May I sign the copyright assignment form if I am employed by the
U.S. government?
If any of the coauthors are not U.S. government
employees,* then the corresponding author must sign the copyright
assignment form on behalf of all authors as the work is not entirely
within the public domain in the United States and has copyright protection
in the United States as well as outside the United States.
*Employees of national laboratories, e.g., Brookhaven
National Laboratory, are not U.S. government employees.