Simple Right of Use & License
In order to be able to publish a document on OPUS, we need the authors to grant us a simple right of use (Sec. 31, par. 2 UrhG, Act on Copyright and Related Rights) for their work. You allow us to publish your work unlimited in time and irrevocable freely available worldwide on the internet, to store and convert your data, if applicable. This right also applies to the German National Library and, if required, to subject-specific libraries with a national collection mandate.
Furthermore, you assure us that no rights of third parties are violated by publishing the document.
In the case of qualification theses (dissertations, habilitation theses, master’s or bachelor’s theses, etc.) you also assure us that the electronic version corresponds with the approved original version in form and content.
Therefore we need the licensing terms (DE) completed and signed by you in order to publish your document. Please note that your co-authors may also have to agree with the publication.
The copyrights of the authors remain protected. The publication on OPUS is not opposed to further publication of the document.
Self-archiving on OPUS
If you can publish a document that has already been published elsewhere additionally via OPUS in electronic form, depends on the agreements you have made with the publisher.
Publications Elsewhere
According to the Act on Copyright and Related Rights, the authors as creators of the documents own all exploitation rights. If a document is first published on OPUS, the author assigns a non-exclusive exploitation right (simple right of use) to the University Library of Stuttgart. Thus, the publication on OPUS is not opposed to further publication of the documents in journals or monographs as well as on other servers.
However, you would have to be careful that you can then no longer assign exclusive or sole rights to a publisher, for example.