Copyright

IEEE Intellectual Property Rights

The rapidly developing communications and publishing technologies are bringing about significant changes in how authors, publishers, and users think about creating and sharing information. Along with presenting innovative methods for distributing information, these new electronic opportunities have presented a healthy challenge to all publishers who wish to respond in the most responsible and practical ways.

Our goal is to continue the role of professional societies in certifying and disseminating accurate scientific information, and toward that end we must maintain some level of control over the material we publish. At the same time, new technology has made it easier to share and distribute electronic files; hence it becomes all the more important that the rights of authors and their employers to reuse their own material are unambiguously defined. We believe these copyright Policies are an important step in that direction.

These Policies aim to encourage the ongoing and timely exchange of research results while at the same time maintaining a reasonably compliant and responsive centralized authority for the published literature. They should be seen as the start of a long conversation on the subject, leading to informed discourse and ultimately to an equitable and balanced policy.