Content Ownership, Copyright, and Licensing

Policies

Content Ownership, Copyright, and Licensing

 

Who owns what, from the manuscript to the published article.

Authors Retain Copyright

Publication in Radiology Research Journal (RRJ) involves no transfer or assignment of copyright. Authors remain the copyright holders of their work in full. The journal asks only for a non-exclusive licence to publish, and the article is made available to readers under CC BY 4.0.

Rights at a Glance
Copyright holderThe author(s)
Licence to readersCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Licence granted to the journalNon-exclusive licence to publish, reproduce, distribute, archive, and index the article
Right of first publicationGranted to the journal
Copyright transfer formNot used by this journal
What Authors May Do With Their Own Article
Reuse the whole article or any part of it in a thesis, book chapter, review, or lecture, without seeking permission.
Deposit any version in any repository immediately, with no embargo.
Translate the article into another language and publish the translation, citing the original.
Distribute copies to students, colleagues, patients, and professional bodies.
Grant a further licence to a third party, since copyright has not been transferred away.
Use their own figures and tables in later work, with citation of the original article.
Third-Party Material

Authors are responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce any material they do not own, and for meeting any fee the rights holder charges. Permission must cover reproduction under a CC BY 4.0 licence in an open access publication; permission limited to "this article only" is not sufficient and must be flagged to the editorial office before acceptance.

Requires Permission
Figures, tables, or images from another publication.
Images from teaching files, textbooks, and radiology case websites.
Copyrighted scales, questionnaires, and classification diagrams.
Screenshots of proprietary software interfaces where the vendor restricts reproduction.
Does Not Require Permission
Material the authors created themselves.
Material already published under CC BY or a compatible open licence, cited appropriately.
Material in the public domain.
Short quotations used for criticism or review, properly attributed.
Patient Images and Clinical Data

Copyright in a clinical image generally rests with the institution that produced it, while the patient retains rights over their personal data and privacy that copyright does not override. Authors must therefore hold both institutional authorisation to publish the image and the patient's informed consent where the image is identifiable, and must have carried out the de-identification steps set out in the Publication Ethics policy. A CC BY licence granted by the authors cannot extend rights over a patient's personal data that the authors do not themselves hold.

Journal Property

The following remain the property of [PUBLISHER NAME] and are not covered by the CC BY licence applied to article content:

The journal title, logo, banner, cover design, and visual identity.
The website design, templates, navigation structure, and editorial page content.
Manuscript templates and author forms provided by the journal.
The compilation and arrangement of each issue as a collective work.
Unpublished Manuscripts and Review Reports
A submitted manuscript remains the property of its authors at every stage. Rejection or withdrawal returns the work entirely to them, with no residual claim by the journal.
Peer review reports are the intellectual work of the reviewer, held in confidence by the journal, and are not published or shared beyond the editorial process.
Editorial correspondence is confidential to the parties involved and is retained only for the period stated in the Privacy Statement.
Reporting Misuse

CC BY permits wide reuse but always requires attribution. Republication of an article without credit, or presentation of it as another party's work, breaches the licence. Authors or readers who encounter such misuse may report it to [EDITORIAL EMAIL]. As copyright holders, the authors are the parties entitled to enforce the licence, and the journal will support them with documentation of first publication.

Radiology Research Journal (RRJ) · Content Ownership Policy · Version 1.0, [MONTH YEAR]