The rights of academic writers

By Paul Clifton. Academics are teachers and researchers and administrators. Many are also writers, whether it is of journal articles or scientific papers or scholarly monographs. For many academics, writing for publication is required for their promotion. Some also write outside of their work, whether it is fiction or non-fiction, poetry or opinion pieces. Whatever form of writing is done, what is produced automatically accrues important rights that shouldn’t be ignored.
The principal right of an author is copyright, which ensures that the literary work is their legal property and can’t be reproduced without their permission. This is a right that has been enshrined in national copyright laws around the world, including in Australia. The protection of copyright, and the rights of authors more generally, has been the principal aim and activity of the Australian Society of Authors (ASA) for the last half century. More...