Examples
Worked examples
- Is an instance
A journal's standard "license to publish" form, offered instead of a Copyright Transfer Agreement, under which the author remains the copyright holder of record while the publisher holds the sole right to typeset, host, and distribute the version of record.
- Is an instance
An author complying with a funder rights-retention mandate deposits a CC BY-licensed author accepted manuscript in a repository before signing the publisher's agreement; because the author still holds copyright at that point, the earlier CC BY grant and the later exclusive license to the publisher can coexist without conflict.
Counter-examples
Looks similar, but isn't
- Not an instance
A traditional Copyright Transfer Agreement, under which the author assigns copyright ownership itself (not merely a license to exercise it) to the publisher, leaving the author reliant on whatever rights the agreement expressly reserves back.
Editorial commentary
An exclusive license is a publishing-agreement model in which the author retains ownership of copyright in the work but grants the publisher an exclusive right to publish, reproduce, and distribute it. It functions as an alternative to a Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA): a CTA transfers copyright ownership itself from the author to the publisher, while an exclusive license leaves ownership with the author and instead grants the publisher a defined, exclusive bundle of rights to exploit the work commercially.
Because the license is exclusive, the publisher is still the only party permitted to exercise the granted rights during the license term — including, in most standard forms, the author themself, who typically may not grant the same rights to a third party for a competing publication of the identical version. What distinguishes it from a CTA in practice is what is not transferred: since copyright ownership stays with the author, any rights the license does not expressly grant away (such as the right to reuse figures, deposit a version in an institutional repository subject to embargo terms, or reproduce the work in a future compilation) remain the author’s by default rather than requiring a grant-back clause from the publisher.
Why publishers and funders increasingly prefer it over a full copyright transfer
An exclusive license has become the preferred or required model at a number of society and commercial publishers offering it as an option alongside, or instead of, a traditional CTA, and it aligns more directly with funder open-access policy. Funder rights-retention policies — most prominently cOAlition S’s Rights Retention Strategy — ask authors to attach a CC BY license to their author accepted manuscript before signing any subsequent publisher agreement, which is only workable if the author still holds copyright to license in the first place. An outright copyright transfer executed before that point would leave the author with nothing left to retain.
Exclusive license vs. copyright transfer agreement
| Dimension | Exclusive license | Copyright transfer agreement |
|---|---|---|
| Copyright ownership | Stays with the author | Assigned to the publisher |
| Publisher’s rights | A defined, exclusive bundle (publish, reproduce, distribute) | All rights, unless the agreement expressly reserves some back to the author |
| Author’s residual reuse rights | Retained by default unless expressly licensed away | Retained only if expressly carved out by the agreement |
| Compatibility with rights-retention/CC BY policies | Straightforward, since the author still holds copyright to license | Difficult once copyright itself has already changed hands |
Examples
- A journal’s standard “license to publish” form, offered instead of a CTA, under which the author’s name remains the copyright holder of record while the publisher holds the sole right to typeset, host, and distribute the version of record.
- An author complying with a funder’s rights-retention mandate deposits a CC BY-licensed author accepted manuscript in a repository before signing the publisher’s agreement; because the author still holds copyright at that point, the CC BY grant and the subsequent exclusive license to the publisher can coexist without conflict.
Counter-example
A traditional Copyright Transfer Agreement, under which the author assigns copyright ownership itself — not merely a license to exercise it — to the publisher. After signing, the author must rely on whatever rights the agreement expressly reserves back, since the underlying ownership itself is no longer theirs.
Related terms
Machine-readable encodings
Use in your systems
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vocab-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/"
vocab-term="Exclusive License (Publishing)"
vocab-term-identifier="https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/exclusive-license" />{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
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"name": "Exclusive License (Publishing)",
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"description": "A publishing agreement in which the author keeps ownership of copyright but grants the publisher the sole, exclusive right to publish, reproduce, and distribute the work. It is offered by many journals as an alternative to a Copyright Transfer Agreement (CTA): under a CTA the author assigns copyright ownership itself to the publisher, whereas under an exclusive license the author retains ownership and grants only a defined bundle of exclusive rights, keeping whatever rights the agreement does not expressly grant away.",
"inDefinedTermSet": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/domain/publishing#set",
"url": "https://casrai.org/dictionary/term/exclusive-license",
"sameAs": [],
"license": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
"publisher": {
"@id": "https://casrai.org/#organization"
},
"dateModified": "2026-07-30T08:54:16",
"inLanguage": "en"
}
