Author Warranty and Provisional License To Publish
mSphere® authors will be required to complete the "Author Warranty and Provisional License To Publish" through the online submission system for articles accepted for publication.
Please note that if your employer claims copyright, this form must also be completed by an authorized individual from your organization who may complete the form on behalf of your organization, as confirmation that your employer agrees to the terms of this license.
License To Publish
In consideration of publication of the article (“the Work”) in mSphere (including but not limited to text, figures, tables, artwork, abstracts, cover images, summaries, and supplemental material submitted with the Work), the Author hereby grants to the American Society for Microbiology (ASM) for the full term of copyright and any extensions thereto the irrevocable, nonexclusive, worldwide license on a commercial and noncommercial basis to (a) publish, reproduce, distribute, transmit, display, and store the Work in all forms, now known or later developed; (b) to translate the Work into other languages, create adaptations, summaries, or extracts of the Work or other derivative works based on the Work and exercise all of the rights set forth in (a) above in such translations, adaptations, summaries, extracts, and derivative works; (c) to sublicense to others to do any or all of the above; and (d) take any and all action to protect the copyright in the Work on behalf of the Author. It is understood that the Author will receive no royalty or other monetary compensation. In the event that ASM decides not to publish the Work, this license shall be terminated and all rights revert to the Author.
Author's Agreement and Representations
The Author signing below (the “Corresponding Author”) warrants that the Work is original and that the Corresponding Author has full power and authority to grant the rights hereunder. The Corresponding Author represents that he or she has been authorized by any and all coauthors to act on their behalf for this purpose and that he or she is a joint author of the Work or has been authorized by the copyright owner to enter into this agreement. If the Work is a work made for hire and an Author’s employer owns the copyright, this license to publish must be signed by the Author and an authorized representative of the employer. If Crown copyright is claimed because Author is an employee of the Australian, Canadian, or UK Government, then the text at the bottom of this Agreement applies. The Corresponding Author further warrants that all coauthors have contributed significantly to the content and preparation of the Work and that they have seen and approved the content, authorship and order of author representation. It is the responsibility of the Corresponding Author to review subsequent revisions of the Work with all coauthors.
Prior Publication: The Corresponding Author warrants that all coauthors agree that the Work and the substance of its data have not been previously published in print or online, e.g., in a journal, book, conference report, symposium proceedings, company white paper, or on a funder’s website. The Corresponding Author further warrants that the Work is not currently under consideration for publication elsewhere. If accepted for publication by mSphere, it will not be submitted elsewhere. However, publication of an article in mSphere does not preclude a later publication on the same organism, e.g., a full comparative analysis, in an ASM journal.
Preprint Policy: ASM Journals will consider for publication manuscripts that have been posted in a recognized preprint archive provided that, upon acceptance of the manuscript for publication, the Author is still able to grant ASM copyright or agree to the terms of an Open Access license and pay the associated fee. It is the responsibility of authors to inform the journal at the time of submission if and where their article has been previously posted, and if the manuscript is accepted for publication in an ASM journal, authors are required to update the preprint with a citation to the final published article that includes the URL along with a link.
Competing Financial Interests: The Corresponding Author confirms that all coauthors have disclosed any interest that may constitute a conflict of interest regarding the Work, including but not limited to commercial affiliations, stock or equity interests, and patent-licensing arrangements.
Permission: The Corresponding Author is responsible for obtaining written permission for the use of any material in the Work that may be under copyright to others. Unpublished material that is provided by others and included in the Work must be accompanied by a signed permission letter from the provider of such information. The Corresponding Author warrants that copies of all such permissions have been submitted with the Work.
Retention of Rights
Ownership of copyright in the Work remains with the Author or Author’s employer as may be the case. The Author and ASM agree that in addition to any rights under copyright retained by the Author or Author’s employer, the Author or Author’s employer retains (i) the rights to reproduce, to distribute, to publicly perform, and to publicly display the Work in any medium; (ii) the right to prepare derivative works from the Work; and (iii) the right to authorize others to make any use of the Work provided proper credit is given to the original mSphere publication. For example, the Author may make and distribute copies in the course of teaching and research and may post the Work on personal or institutional Web sites and in other open-access digital repositories.
All rights, title, and interest in mSphere as a collective work shall remain with ASM. Nothing in this Agreement shall give the Author any proprietary rights in mSphere other than in the Work.
Special Notice for U.S. Government Employees
ASM understands that works authored solely by U.S. Government employees within the scope of their employment are not subject to U.S. copyright, and the license provision of this agreement only applies to any foreign copyright protection that may attach to the Work.
Open Access Publication
If accepted for publication, the Work will be made freely available to the public on ASM’s mSphere website. ASM will grant the public the nonexclusive right to copy, distribute, adapt, and transmit the published Work for commercial or non-commercial use with proper attribution under the Creative Commons, Attribution license, Version 4.0 (CC-BY) (for details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode).
The Work is subject to Crown Copyright. Copyright is owned by the Crown rather than the Author if the Work was created during the course of Author’s employment with the Australian, Canadian, or UK Government.
Updated April 2018