Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - Copyright Policy

Copyright Policy

The IEEE requires authors to transfer their copyright for works they submit for publication.

The IEEE generally does not create its own research. It is a professional organization that coordinates journal peer-review activities and holds subject-specific conferences in which authors present their research. The IEEE then publishes the authors' papers in journals and other proceedings, and authors are required to give up their exclusive rights to their works.

Section 6.3.1 IEEE Copyright Policies – subsections 7 and 8 – states that "all authors…shall transfer to the IEEE in writing any copyright they hold for their individual papers", but that the IEEE will grant the authors permission to make copies and use the papers they originally authored, so long as such use is permitted by the Board of Directors. The guidelines for what the Board considers a "permitted" use are not entirely clear, although posting a copy on a personally controlled website is allowed. The author is also not allowed to change the work absent explicit approval from the organization. The IEEE justifies this practice in the first paragraph of that section, by stating that they will "serve and protect the interests of its authors and their employers".

The IEEE places research papers and other publications such as IEEE standards behind a "paywall", although the IEEE explicitly allows authors to make a copy of the papers that they authored freely available on their own website. As of September 2011, the IEEE also provides authors for most new journal papers with the option to pay to allow free download of their papers by the public from the IEEE publication website.

IEEE publications have received a Green rating the from SHERPA/RoMEO guide for affirming "authors and/or their companies shall have the right to post their IEEE-copyrighted material on their own servers without permission" (IEEE Publication Policy 8.1.9.D). This open access policy effectively allows authors, at their choice, to make their article openly available. Roughly 1/3 of the IEEE authors take this route.

Some other professional associations do not impose the same requirements on authors. For example, the USENIX association requires that the author only give up the right to publish the paper elsewhere for 12 months (in addition to allowing authors to post copies of the paper on their own website during that time). The organization operates successfully even though all of its publications are freely available online.