[Scholarly Communication] 

Since 2000, authors who publish in the Journal of Cell Biology (as well as other publications from the Rockefeller University Press) have been able to post the final versions of papers on their own websites, in addition to publishing in the journal. However -- as with most scholarly journals -- authors were required to sign over their copyright to the press.

From this point forward, authors who publish in JCB are able to retain copyright control over their work. Instead of relinquishing their copyright, authors provide the journal with a license to publish. Beyond providing this one-time license, authors are freely available to reuse their work however they wish.

Under the new policy, authors also permit noncommercial reuse of their materials after six months of publication. For this purpose, authors will sign the Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license provided by the San Francisco-based Creative Commons.

For further information about this policy, read the JCB editorial, "You wrote it; you own it!"

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