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License and Copyright Agreement

The following License and Copyright Agreement is valid for any article published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in the journal eEarth and its discussion forum eEarth Discussions whose original manuscript was received from 10 December 2007 on. The License and Copyright Agreement for articles based on manuscripts received before 10 December 2007 can be found here.

Author's Certification

In submitting the manuscript, the authors certify that:

  • They are authorized by their co-authors to enter into these arrangements.
  • The work described has not been published before (except in the form of an abstract or proceedings-type publication – including discussion papers – or as part of a published lecture or thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication has been approved by all the author(s) and by the responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – of the institutes where the work has been carried out.
  • They secure the right to reproduce any material that has already been published or copyrighted elsewhere.
  • They agree to the following license and copyright agreement:

Copyright

  • Copyright on any article is retained by the author(s). Regarding copyright transfers please see below.
  • Authors grant Copernicus Publications a license to publish the article and identify itself as the original publisher.
  • Authors grant Copernicus Publications commercial rights to produce hardcopy volumes of the journal for sale to libraries and individuals.
  • Authors grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its original authors and citation details are identified.
  • The article and any associated published material is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0  License:

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License

Anyone is free:

to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to Remix — to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

Attribution. The original authors must be given credit.
  • For any reuse or distribution, it must be made clear to others what the license terms of this work are.
  • Any of these conditions can be waived if the copyright holders give permission.
  • Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.

The full legal code  of this license.


Copyright Transfers

Many authors have strict regulations in their contract of employment regarding their works. A transfer of copyright to the institution or company is usual as well as the reservation of specific usage rights. Please note that in case of Open Access publications in combination with a Creative Commons License a transfer of the copyright to the institution is possible as it belongs to the author anyway and is not subject to the publisher.

Any usage rights are regulated through the Creative Commons License. As Copernicus Publications is using the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License, anyone (the author, his/her institution/company, the publisher, as well as the public) is free to copy, distribute, transmit, and adapt the work as long as the original author is given credit (see above). Therefore, specific usage rights cannot be reserved by the author or his/her institution/company, and the publisher cannot include a statement "all rights reserved" in any published paper.

A copyright transfer from the author to his/her institution/company will be expressed in a special "Copyright Statement" at the end of the publication rather than on the first page in the article citation header. Authors are asked to include the following sentence: "The author's copyright for this publication is transferred to institution/company".


Crown Copyright

The license and copyright agreement of Copernicus Publications respects the Crown Copyright. For works written by authors affiliated to the British Government and its institutions a copyright statement will be included at the end of the publication. Authors are asked to use the following sentence: "This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License together with an author copyright. This license does not conflict with the regulations of the Crown Copyright."


Reproduction Request

All articles published by Copernicus Publications are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (see details above) together with an author copyright. Therefore, there is no need from the publisher's side to allow/confirm a reproduction. We would suggest to contact the author to inform him/her about the further usage of the material. But as the author decided to publish the scientific results under the "CC-BY" license, he/she decided to share the work under the condition that the original authors must be given credit.