Comptes Rendus

Intellectual Property

 

Rights transfer policy

By publishing in Comptes Rendus, authors grant the journal the right of first publication and distribution of the final published version (version of records or version of reference). This right is formalized by the signing of a non-exclusive rights transfer agreement.

All articles in the Comptes Rendus (including content published prior to 2020) are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which allows the journal to use and reproduce the articles and create derivative works in any medium and format, including for commercial purposes.

Authors retain all of their intellectual property rights and are free to enter into additional, separate contractual agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the version of their article published by the journal (e.g., deposit in an open archive or publication in a book), provided that they acknowledge and cite the initial publication of the article in Comptes Rendus.

 

Include in your manuscript elements (tables, figures, etc.) already published elsewhere

If your manuscript reuses elements already published elsewhere (in a previous article, on a website, in a report, etc.), it is highly likely that these elements are protected by specific copyrights, even if you are the author yourself. We therefore ask you to ensure that you obtain all the necessary written authorizations for the reuse of these copyrighted elements in Comptes Rendus from all rights holders (co-authors, commercial publisher, database owner, etc.), and in particular to ask yourself whether you have the right to 

  • Reproduce the element as is? If so, under what conditions?
    NB: all Creative Commons licenses authorize the reproduction of the elements they cover, but they sometimes impose specific conditions on such reuse.
  • Modify the element (cropping, color retouching, translation of terms, deletion of a series of data, etc.)? If so, under what conditions?
    NB: Creative Commons licenses that include the acronym “ND - No Derivative Work” prohibit any modification of the copyrighted item.

By signing your rights transfer agreement, you affirm that you have taken all the necessary steps for any reuse of previous content. In the event of a dispute, the Académie des sciences will take action against you.

 

Reuse of copyrighted material: frequently asked questions

  • The material I want to reproduce in my article is openly accessible. Can I reuse it freely? No. Being able to freely access content, whether scientific or not (e.g., journals available without subscription, newspaper articles, institutional websites, blog posts, etc.), does not mean that you can reuse it freely. In the absence of an explicit statement authorizing you to reuse content, you are NOT authorized to reuse it, unless you have the express consent of all rights holders (co-authors, commercial publisher, etc.).
  • If I write an article for your journal that includes copyrighted material, is this considered “personal use”? No, writing an article for publication does not fall within the category of “personal use” authorized by certain publishers.
  • What is the economic model for publishing your journal? Comptes Rendus is published under a diamond open access model, free of charge for readers (no subscription required) and authors (no publication fees). This corresponds to non-commercial use, authorized by all Creative Commons licenses that include the “NC” acronym.
  • Under what license is your journal published? Comptes Rendus is published under a Creative Commons Attribution - International, CC-BY 4.0 license.
  • Is the publisher a for-profit organization? No. The Académie des sciences is a non-profit public institution under French law.
  • How many copies of your journal are distributed/how many visits does the site receive per year/how many downloads of the journal are there? Comptes Rendus are published exclusively in electronic format; no paper copies are made for the public. For any requests for information concerning the number of visits or annual downloads of the journal, please contact the editorial office, bearing in mind that this number may vary from year to year and that it is not possible for us to set a limit.
  • How long should I request reproduction rights (and possibly modification rights) for the copyrighted work I wish to include in my article? We hope that Comptes Rendus will remain in publication for as long as possible, so you should obtain perpetual rights.
  • Can the journal cover the cost of any fees for the reuse of protected works? No. In line with their commitment to the most open science possible, Comptes Rendus will not take any action on behalf of authors and will not cover any rights payments.
  • Is the publisher a member of the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM)? No, the Academy of Sciences is not a member of STM.

For further assistance with these intellectual property issues, please contact the research support units at your affiliated institutions. It is not within the remit of the French Academy of Sciences to take these steps on behalf of authors.

 

Reprinting and reusing your articles

Submitted version (author manuscript or preprint): any author wishing to publish in Comptes Rendus is authorized to distribute their manuscript in advance on a preprint server such as Open Research Europe or arXiv, an open archive such as HAL, an open peer review platform such as Peer Community In, or any other website such as a laboratory website. However, the manuscript must be clearly identified as not yet peer-reviewed or accepted for publication, and must not contain any changes that may be requested at a later date.

If the author's manuscript is subsequently accepted for publication and then published by Comptes Rendus, its authors must report these changes in editorial status, provide a link to the journal, and include in the manuscript notice the DOI assigned by the Academy to the final published version.

 

Accepted version (author's accepted manuscript or postprint): any author whose manuscript has been accepted for publication in the Comptes Rendus may distribute the final version of their unformatted text on a preprint server such as Open Research Europe or arXiv, in an open archive such as HAL, or on any other website such as a laboratory website. The manuscript must be clearly identified as having been peer-reviewed, corrected in accordance with the reviewers' requests, and accepted in principle by the journal, with a link to the journal's website.

After publication by Comptes Rendus, the article description must be modified to include the final DOI assigned to the final published version.

 

Published version (publisher PDF or version of record): the Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 4.0 license under which Comptes Rendus articles are distributed allows authors to deposit the published version of their work in an open archive such as HAL, or on any other website such as a laboratory website, provided that the DOI of the published article is included in the article description.

NB: for deposit in HAL, you can select the option “I have verified that this publisher is one of those that allow the deposit of publisher files in an open archive.”

 

 

Choosing a self-archiving platform

To choose the preprint server, open archive, or portal best suited to disseminating your author manuscripts, please consult the Open Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR), a JISC service.

In addition, if you want your manuscript to be referenced by Europe PubMed Central, we recommend choosing one of the preprint servers indexed by the database, including arXiv, bioRxiv, Open Research Europe or Preprints.org.

If you have any questions about disseminating your work, please do not hesitate to contact us.

 

Additional resources: