The exclusive rights granted to copyright holders exist from creation through the life of the author, plus 70 years. The copyright holder has the ability to decide who may use the work and under what conditions.
Copyright is actually a "bundle" of rights and as such, these rights may be given away, gifted, sold or transferred to another party, in whole or in part, by the copyright holder.
You can negotiate your publishing agreement to retain more of your rights as an author.
Addendums allow you to request modifications to your publishing agreement in order to retain the rights you need.
An extensive list of Author Addenda is available through the Open Access Directory.
Examples of author addenda are provided below:
SPARC : Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition - educational advocacy group supporting open access and responsible stewardship of intellectual property in scholarly publishing
Cornell University Guide to Negotiating and Amending Author Agreements
Phrases to Look for in Publisher Agreements This list of examples and stipulations occurring in various copyright agreement forms (dated 2008) provides questions authors should ask when determining what rights to retain.
ACRL Scholarly Communication Toolkit: Author's Rights - collection of resources to assist authors with understanding and making informed decisions regarding copyright
SHERPA/RoMEO - use to identify publisher's policies regarding the self-archiving of journal articles on the web and in Open Access repositories.
Scholar's Copyright Addendum Engine - choose from several access options to generate a PDF contract addendum that can be printed and submitted to your publisher.
Explore other publishing agreements which make research and scholarship available free from or with reduced copyright and paywall restrictions. Consider: