ACM - Computers in Entertainment

1. Introduction
      1.1 Background
      1.2 Rationale

2. Copyrighted Works

2.1 Requirement for Copyright
2.2 Copyright Notice
2.3 Permissions
2.4 Definitive Versions and Revisions
2.5 Rights Retained by Authors 
2.6 Fixity of Works
2.7 Solicited Works
2.8 Edited Collections
2.9 Coverage

3. ACM Permissions Policy

3.1 Objectives of this Policy
3.2 General Permissions Policy
3.3 Permission for Educational Uses of Copyrighted Material
3.4 Permission for Commercial Republish
3.5 Fees
3.6 Access to Copyrighted Works
3.7 Links
3.8 Distributions from non-ACM Servers
3.9 Production of Digitized Copies
3.10 Rights Retained by Authors

4. Processes

1. Introduction

1.1 Background

ACM began moving its publication operations from paper-only to electronic distribution from a structured database in 1994. With the initial ACM Interim Copyright Policy in 1994, ACM aligned itself with author and reader practices in the world-wide Internet, and became the first scientific publisher to adopt copyright policies for cyberspace.

Since 1994, ACM's copyright and permission policies have been widely used as a model by other publishers in adapting their own policies to the ever-changing realities of electronic dissemination. ACM intends to continue review of its policies as technology and practices evolve. Nonetheless, with this latest update of ACM's Policy, we are dropping "Interim" from its title, as it suggests something more temporary than experience indicates.

This document supersedes all previous statements of ACM copyright and Permissions policies. Permission is granted to other publishers to adapt this policy for your use with acknowledgement to ACM.

1.2 Rationale

The goal of ACM's publications program is to deliver quality content and services at the lowest prices consistent with a vibrant and fiscally healthy organization. ACM aims to serve readers' and authors' interests by publishing high-quality original works, maintaining the integrity of these works, defending authors' rights in them against plagiarism, providing a stable means of linking to them, promoting the dissemination of these works to the widest possible readership in contemporary media, and preserving access to them indefinitely despite changes in technology. ACM embraces a not-for-profit business model that aims to assure a sustainable revenue for the continued operation and enhancement of the ACM Publications Program and the ACM Digital Library while making ACM publications available to a wide audience.

ACM publishing uses a process of selection, editorial refinement, production, distribution and access, promotion, indexing, interlinking, functional enhancement, user support, and preservation that requires the coordinated efforts of all participants in the knowledge chain, together with their support structures, and costs a significant amount of money. Most of these costs exist regardless of whether content is published in print or electronically. In order to derive sufficient revenue to support the ACM publishing process, ACM charges fees for access to most of its publications.

When readers access ACM works through the ACM Digital Library, print subscription, or other licensed distribution mechanism, they can be assured that they are accessing the definitive version of a work rather than an early draft or a later unreviewed version. They can be further assured that the version they are accessing will be permanently available.

Although ACM grants authors certain rights to post author-prepared versions of their work covered by ACM copyright, ACM requires that authors include the ACM copyright statement in these works, as well as a reference to the definitive version in the ACM Digital Library. By including the reference to the ACM Digital Library, they alert readers to the availability of the definitive version of the work. ACM desires that users of ACM copyrighted works in electronic form access those works through ACM, and not through alternative services which have not been authorized by ACM to redistribute the works.

In exchange for the venue, the visibility, and services ACM provides in publishing their work, authors grant ACM the rights to their work, which include the exclusive rights to sell subscriptions and access licenses to it. ACM's bargain with authors and readers is reflected in the ACM Copyright and Permissions Policies, the Rights and Responsibilities in ACM Publishing, and in the care invested in making quality works readily accessible through reasonable pricing and tools that facilitate research uses. In the spirit of this bargain, ACM asks authors and readers alike to support ACM's publishing program by abiding by the ACM Copyright and Permissions Policies.

ACM firmly believes that it achieves a balance among divergent goals; that its use of copyright within its publishing program in fact serves the public good by enabling the creation and widespread dissemination of quality works in various formats and media.

2. Copyrighted Works

2.1 Requirement for Copyright

(See also 3.7 Links.)

In special cases where an author or author's employer must retain copyright, or when ACM does not wish to give its imprimatur to a particular work, ACM may accept a release from the owner that grants ACM the permission it needs to publish the work.

2.2 Copyright Notice

ACM COPYRIGHT NOTICE. Copyright © YYYY by the Association for Computing Machinery, Inc. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from Publications Dept., ACM, Inc., fax 1 (212) 869-0481, or email [email protected].

2.3 Permissions

ACM publications staff will monitor [email protected] for requests for permission and releases under this policy. Persons granted permission to copy an ACM work must display with the copy "© YYYY ACM, Inc. Included here by permission."

Refer to §3 ACM Permissions Policy for specific permissions and types of use.

As a matter of professional courtesy, the lead author of any ACM copyrighted work is consulted in weighing requests from third parties for permission to republish.

2.4 Definitive Versions and Revisions

2.5 Rights Retained by Authors

• all other proprietary rights to the work such as patent

• the right to reuse any portion of the work, without fee, in future works of the author's own*, including books, lectures and presentations in all media, provided that the ACM citation and notice of the Copyright are included

• the right to revise the work (See §2.4 Definitive Versions and Revisions), and

• the right to post author-prepared versions of the work covered by ACM copyright in a personal collection on their own Home Page and on a publicly accessible server of their employer. Such posting is limited to noncommercial access and personal use by others, and must include this notice both embedded within the full text file and in the accompanying citation display as well:

"© ACM, YYYY. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in PUBLICATION, {VOL#, ISS#, (DATE)} http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/nnnnnn.nnnnnn"

• the right of an employer that originally owned copyright to distribute definitive copies of its author-employees work within its organization. Posting these works for world access requires explicit permission from ACM.

Authors may post works on public repositories before acceptance but must incorporate the ACM copyright notice upon transfer of copyright.

After acceptance, authors may post the work on public repositories only with the explicit permission of ACM.

Re-use of third-party material contained in ACM copyrighted works always requires the consent of the copyright holder, as ACM's copyright does not cover third-party material.

*Requests made on behalf of others, i.e., for contributions to the work of other authors or other editors, may require payment of the fee.

2.6 Fixity of Works

2.7 Solicited Works

2.8 Edited Collections

2.9 Coverage

3. ACM Permissions Policy
3.1 Objectives of this Policy

3.2 General Permissions Policy

ACM grants gratis permission for individual digital or hard copies made without fee for use in academic classrooms and for use by individuals in personal research and study. No further reproduction or distribution is allowed without explicit permission. All copies must carry the original citation, the ACM copyright and notice of permission on the first page or initial screen of the document without exception. (See §2.2 Copyright Notice)

Requestors may expect a response to their inquiry within three business days. A complete reply may take longer, depending on the volume of requests received and their complexity.

3.3 Educational and Library Uses of Copyrighted Material

• Course Material — Permission granted without fee if the course material is produced without charge to the student. (See Commercially produced Course Packs at §3.4.)
• Electronic Reserves — Permission granted without fee provided the library or institution has an authentication mechanism for controlled access to the server and a license to the ACM-copyrighted work. A college, university or other accredited institution may place a single copy of a definitive version of the work in its library's electronic reserves for the duration of its educational needs for that work, provided that access is limited to its enrolled students (including those in its distance learning programs), faculty, and staff. Those institutions without a current license to the work should contact [email protected].
• Distance Learning — Permission granted without fee for distance learning students enrolled at the institution. They have the same access rights to those ACM copyrighted materials licensed by their institution as any other student. Since institutional access is authenticated by IP address, it is up to the institution to provide a proxy server for its remote users, and to register the IP address of that proxy with ACM.
• Interlibrary Loan (ILL) — Permission granted without fee for an institution with an ACM Digital Library license to download and print works for Interlibrary Loan. The Digital Library may be used as the source for the printed copy. The loan of the work is limited to printed copies, as part of normal library functions under CONFU Guidelines. Electronic dissemination is not allowed.
• Walk-Ins — Permission granted without fee for access to all ACM publications, print or electronic, by all members of the community which a subscribing library is charted to serve.

3.4 Commercial Republication

All reproductions other than those listed in §3.3 Educational Uses require specific permission and a fee payable to ACM. This includes republishing in textbooks, commercially-produced course packs, anthologies, and other edited publications, and posting or other electronic distributions.

• Commerically Produced Course Packs — Use of copyrighted material in course paks requires an appropriate license from the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC). Send requests to http://www.copyright.com or fax to +1 978.750.4744 or phone +1 978.750.8400. Requests received at ACM HQ are referred to the CCC.
• Print Permission — A grant of permission involves consultation with the lead author of the work, the publisher's agreement to pay the required fees, and prominent display of the proper credit acknowledgment.
• Electronic Permission — Rules for commercial distribution will apply unless the request falls under educational use as defined above. The term for internal and external commercial posting of ACM copyrighted material is generally limited to six months, but may be extended for an additional fee. All postings must include pointers to the correct Citation Page in the ACM Digital Library.
• Multiple Copies — Producing multiple copies of ACM copyrighted works for distribution to peers, co-workers, clients, etc. requires a transactional license from the CCC and payment of the required per copy fee. Send requests to http://www.copyright.com or fax to +1 978.750.4744 or phone +1 978.750.8400.
• Software

Software published by ACM is subject to the Software License Agreement (SLA). Commercial license for use of ACM algorithms requires payment of a license fee, and a small royalty payment if required by the original author(s). Contact [email protected]; for details. Sublicense Agreements requires additional fee and signature of sublicensee.

3.5 Fees

3.6 Access to copyrighted works

3.7 Links

3.8 Distributions From non-ACM Servers

Access to the full text of ACM works is by subscription through the ACM Portal and Digital Library. Metadata for the work, including citations, abstracts, index terms, reviews, references, the citing works, and comments, are all available to the general public through the ACM Digital Library.

ACM is open to requests for permission to post ACM copyrighted works to pre-publication servers for the purpose of early dissemination. ACM does not generally grant permission to post ACM copyrighted works on other servers acting as public repositories that compete with the ACM Digital Library.

Individuals often distribute copies of works authored by themselves or by others. Distribution may consist of sending copies to a mailing list or of posting a copy on a server where it is accessible to others who might copy it. Such electronic distributions and postings of ACM-copyrighted works are acts of copying and require ACM permission, unless explicitly allowed under other provisions of this policy. When in doubt, contact [email protected].

Authors and their employers who have transferred copyright to ACM may post author-prepared versions of their works and revisions as specified in Sections 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6.

Anyone who legitimately obtains a copy of an ACM-copyrighted work may use the copy only for non-commercial classroom or personal use, as specified in the ACM copyright notice, unless further permission has been granted by ACM.

3.9 Production of Digitized Copies

3.10 Rights Retained by Authors (See §2.5)

4. Processes

ACM has set high standards for all aspects of the publishing process. These standards are to be found in the Rights and Responsibilities in ACM Publishing. Specific ACM policies against republication and simultaneous submission may found in ACM's Policy on Prior Publication and Simultaneous Submissions .

Version 5, Revised 3/31/09

Version 4, Revised 11/01/02

(Version 3 , 11/15/98)

(Version 2 , 11/15/95)

(Version 1 , 12/1/94)

© 1994, 1995, 1998, 2002, 2009 by ACM, Inc. Permission to copy and distribute this document is hereby granted provided that this notice is retained on all copies, that copies are not altered, and that ACM is credited when the material is used to form other copyright policies.