License to publish
NPG author licence policy
This publishers' policy applies to all journals published by the Nature Publishing Group (NPG), including the Nature journals.
NPG does not require authors of original (primary) research papers to assign copyright of their published contributions. Authors grant NPG an exclusive licence to publish, in return for which they can reuse their papers in their future printed work without first requiring permission from the publisher of the journal. For commissioned articles (for example, Reviews, News and Views), copyright is retained by NPG.
When a manuscript is accepted for publication in an NPG journal, authors are encouraged to submit the author's version of the accepted paper (the unedited manuscript) to PubMedCentral or other appropriate funding body's archive, for public release six months after publication. In addition, authors are encouraged to archive this version of the manuscript in their institution's repositories and, if they wish, on their personal websites, also six months after the original publication. In all these cases, authors should cite the publication reference and DOI number on any deposited version, and provide a link from it to the URL of the published article on the journal's website (see publications A-Z index).
This policy has been developed by NPG's publishers to extend the reach of scientific communication, and to meet the needs of authors and the evolving policies of funding agencies that wish themselves to archive the research they fund. It is also designed to protect the integrity and authenticity of the scientific record, with the published version on nature.com clearly identified as the definitive version of the article.
NPG recognizes the balance of rights held by publishers, authors, their institutions and their funders (Zwolle principles, 2002), and has been a progressive and active participant in debates about access to the literature. In 2002, NPG was one of the first publishers to allow authors to post their contributions on their personal websites, by requesting an exclusive licence to publish, rather than requiring authors to transfer copyright. NPG actively supports the self-archiving process, and continues to work with authors, readers, subscribers and site-license holders to develop its policy.
Creative Commons licence
In December 2007, NPG introduced the Creative Commons attribution-non commercial-share alike unported licence for those articles in Nature journals that are publishing the primary sequence of an organism's genome for the first time. In summary, under this type of licence, readers are free to share (copy, distribute and transmit) and remix (adapt) the contribution under these conditions: attribution in the manner specified by the author or licenser; non-commercial —readers and users cannot re-use the material for commercial purposes; and share alike — if readers or other users alter, transform or build upon the work, they may distribute this work only under the same or similar licence to this one. Further details of the licence and of the legal code are available.
A Nature Editorial introducing this service can be read here: comments are welcome at Nautilus, our author blog.
All articles in NPG's open-access journal Molecular Systems Biology are published under a Creative Commons attribution-non commercial-share alike unported licence or a non commercial-no derivs licence, at the choice of the authors. Please see the Molecular Systems Biology website for more information, and visit The Seven Stones, the Molecular Systems Biology blog, for online discussion of this policy.
PowerPoint slides
Some Nature journals offer downloadable PowerPoint slides of figures in articles. Subscribers and registrants from licensed institutions (register for free at http://www.nature.com/register) may download slides in PowerPoint format for non-profit, educational use, provided the content is not modified and full credit is given to the author and journal. Any other re-use requires the permission of Nature Publishing Group (permission can be obtained online by following the 'Rights and Permissions' link on the right-hand side of the article's Full Text (HTML) and Abstract web pages). For images credited to other sources, permission must first be gained from the source in the figure legend or credit line.
General information
NPG's publishers welcome authors' feedback and comments on the NPG author licence policy. Please use the email link provided and address your message for the attention of the publisher of the journal in which your paper appears.
Licence to publish forms for authors of orginal scientific research and of commissioned material are available. There are separate forms for authors employed by the US or UK government, also available at the web page linked in the previous sentence.