1. Why is it necessary to have an Authors’ Agreement?

It is intended that the contributions submitted by the Authors for the project 1914-1918-online should be made available to as wide a public as possible. Therefore, the publication model is based on the open access principle. This requires that the contributions are made available to the public by means of an Open Content Licence, as envisaged for the project 1914-1918-online by publication under a Creative Commons Licence (hereinafter CC Licence). The purpose of the Authors’ Agreement is to distribute the rights between the Authors and the Freie Universität Berlin in such a way that enables this publication model to be followed while at the same time guaranteeing that the Authors largely retain the right to use their own contributions themselves.

2. Am I allowed to publish my contributions elsewhere?

Yes, this is possible. There are two ways of doing so:

a) First, under the CC Licence you have the unlimited right to copy and pass on your contributions in an unchanged form or place them online elsewhere for non-commercial purposes, e.g. for teaching.

b) Second, you have the right to use your contributions in the version submitted to 1914-1918-online for commercial purposes or to allow a third party (such as a publisher) to use them commercially. For secondary publication, e.g. in publications by publishing houses, the only restriction is that it is not possible to grant the publishing house exclusive rights of use, as this would collide with the CC Licence.

3. What am I not allowed to do with my contributions?

It is not possible to grant third parties, e.g. publishing houses, exclusive rights of use for your contributions in the version submitted to 1914-1918-online, as this would conflict with the CC Licence.

4. What are third parties allowed to do with my contributions?

a) Under the CC Licence third parties have the right to copy and pass on your contributions in an unchanged form or place them online elsewhere for non-commercial purposes.

b) If you as an author grant commercial rights of use for your contributions to a third party, e.g. a publishing house, the publishing house also is allowed to use your contributions for commercial purposes.

5. What are third parties not allowed to do with my contributions?

a) Third parties cannot commercially use your contributions if you as an author have not expressly granted them the right to do so.

b) Third parties cannot publish your contributions in a changed form.

c) Third parties cannot publish your contributions elsewhere without giving you credit, naming the source of your contribution, and the CC License.