Copyright and Licensing Policy

Terms governing copyright retention, permission for the journal to publish, and reuse of articles, illustrations and supplementary materials.

Contents

1. Legal basis and ownership of rights
2. Publication permission and author confirmations
3. The CC BY 4.0 open licence
4. Attribution and identification of changes
5. Third-party material and licence exclusions
6. Supplements, data and software code
7. Self-archiving and redistribution
8. Licence boundaries and automated reuse
9. Licence notices and previously published articles
10. Infringement reports and corrections

01. Legal basis and ownership of rights

This policy applies to materials in Irrigation and Melioration. Its legal basis is the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan of 20 July 2006 No. ZRU-42 on Copyright and Related Rights, as amended, other applicable provisions and international treaties of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

Authors retain the copyright they own. The journal does not require an assignment of exclusive rights in the article. Authors retain their inalienable moral rights, including authorship, identification and protection of reputation; no waiver of their exercise is required (Article 18 of the Law).

The proper rights holder must be identified before publication. Exclusive rights in a work created in the course of employment may belong to the employer unless the contract provides otherwise (Article 34). Authors must obtain necessary authority from their employer, co-authors or another rights holder. The publisher’s rights in the journal as a publication (Article 17) do not automatically confer copyright in every individual article.

02. Publication permission and author confirmations

Before publication, the authors or authorised rights holder grant the publisher a non-exclusive right of first journal publication and distribution of the article under CC BY 4.0. Permission covers agreed editorial preparation and typesetting, print and electronic reproduction, online availability, distribution, inclusion in issues, preservation and archiving, and dissemination of bibliographic metadata.

Permission is documented in writing, including an electronic document meeting the legal requirements, in accordance with Articles 38, 39 and 42 of the Law. The agreement specifies the permitted uses, worldwide territory, duration for the term of the relevant rights, consent to CC BY 4.0 and author remuneration terms subject to mandatory law. This informational policy does not replace a duly executed agreement; uploading a file alone does not establish all necessary authority.

The corresponding author confirms all co-authors’ approval of the final version, lawful authority to grant rights and disclosure of restrictions. Substantive editorial changes require author agreement. Any existing preprint must be disclosed on submission; first journal publication does not imply that no preprint existed. Any publication service fee under a separate policy does not constitute a purchase of copyright.

03. The CC BY 4.0 open licence

Articles are published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). It allows copying, sharing, translation and adaptation of the covered material, including commercial reuse, without separate permission when its terms are met. Applicable copyright exceptions, limitations and the public domain remain independently relevant.

• When sharing material, retain attribution, copyright and licence notices supplied by the rights holder, any applicable warranty disclaimer notice and a link to the source to the extent reasonably practicable.
• Identify changes, retain indications of previous modifications and provide the CC BY 4.0 text or link. Do not imply endorsement of the user or the use by the authors or journal.
• Do not impose additional legal restrictions or technological measures that prevent others from exercising the rights granted by the licence.

Under CC BY 4.0, permission cannot be revoked from users who comply with the licence. Ending distribution or changing this policy does not by itself terminate an existing licence. Mandatory law remains applicable; requests to withdraw a work under Article 18 of the Law are considered separately and are not treated as automatically cancelling all users’ rights.

04. Attribution and identification of changes

For scholarly reuse, a citation should identify the authors, article title, journal, year, volume, issue, pages or article number, DOI or permanent link and licence. A complete bibliographic reference is a scholarly citation standard, not an additional restriction beyond CC BY 4.0.

Translations, abridgements and adapted illustrations must be identified as modified versions. They must not be presented as text or images approved by the authors and editors. Redistribution does not permit appropriation of authorship, concealment of the original publication or presentation of an adaptation as a new independent original article.

05. Third-party material and licence exclusions

Authors must check rights in reused figures, photographs, maps, tables, text extracts, questionnaires and other protected material. Citation alone does not replace permission where permission is needed. Reuse without separate permission must remain within applicable law or the source licence.

Inclusion under the article’s general licence requires authority to distribute that material under CC BY 4.0. Permission for a single publication does not necessarily authorise open licensing. Where a different licence or limited permission applies, the credit line must identify the rights holder, source, separate conditions and exclusion from the article’s CC BY 4.0 licence.

Material without an adequate lawful basis must be replaced or removed before publication. Readers must check the terms of expressly excluded items separately; the journal cannot grant more rights than it holds.

06. Supplements, data and software code

Author-created textual and illustrative supplements published as part of the article are covered by CC BY 4.0 unless separate terms are stated beside a particular item. Exclusions must be visible in both the article and the supplementary file.

Standalone datasets, software code, models and material in external repositories must state their own licence, version and permanent link. The article licence does not automatically extend to them. Code should use an appropriate software licence; data licensing must account for database rights, third-party rights and lawful access restrictions.

Unprotected facts do not acquire exclusive copyright merely by appearing in an article. Creative presentation and a protected database structure may nevertheless have separate protection. Data availability, documentation and justified access restrictions are disclosed under the Data and Reproducibility Policy.

07. Self-archiving and redistribution

Authors may deposit preprints, accepted author manuscripts and the published version in institutional or subject repositories, on personal websites and on other lawful platforms without a journal-imposed embargo. The version must be identified accurately; after publication, add the bibliographic reference, DOI where available and licence information.

Preprints and accepted manuscripts must state the terms actually granted by the rights holder for that version. CC BY 4.0 on the published version is not automatically assigned to every earlier file. Redistribution of the published version must retain its licence notices and third-party exclusions.

The open licence does not cover confidential reviews, editorial correspondence, signed consent forms or users’ personal data. Repository deposit must not falsely suggest a separate new publication or conceal an article correction or retraction.

08. Licence boundaries and automated reuse

CC BY 4.0 does not grant patent or trademark rights, or permission to use another person’s personal data or likeness. Inalienable moral rights remain protected under applicable law. Permission to reuse a work does not constitute a research participant’s consent to every subsequent use of information about them.

Automated text and data analysis, including use by companies developing artificial intelligence, is permitted to the extent that the relevant acts are covered by CC BY 4.0 or allowed by law. Licence conditions also apply to machine processing and distribution of protected excerpts. This policy does not authorise access to confidential material or bypassing access controls.

The licence does not guarantee scientific accuracy, fitness for a particular purpose or the availability of all other necessary permissions. Its warranty disclaimers apply only to the extent permitted by law. Use of AI by authors, editors and reviewers is additionally governed by the separate Artificial Intelligence Tools Policy.

09. Licence notices and previously published articles

Every published article, including HTML and PDF full texts, must identify the actual copyright holder, year and CC BY 4.0 with a licence link. These details must agree with the article page and distributed metadata. Where authors hold the rights, the notice is “© [Year] The Author(s)”; another holder is named only on a documented basis.

Rights notices for the website, its design, logos or an issue as a whole do not replace article-specific notices. They must not restrict reuse of an article permitted by its licence.

The terms of each archived publication must be checked. A revised policy does not itself change a previous licence or convert material with unclear status to CC BY 4.0. Relicensing requires sufficient rights; changes must be transparent and preserve information about earlier permissions. Errors in notices are corrected on the article page, in files and in metadata.

10. Infringement reports and corrections

Reports should be sent to the editorial office at i_m_jurnal@tiiame.uz. Identify the article or DOI, disputed item, source, alleged infringement and evidence of rights or authority to act. Do not send unnecessary personal documents.

The editors assess the grounds and documentation, seek explanations and may pause publication where needed. After publication, action may include correcting attribution or licence information, issuing a correction, restricting access to a specific unlawfully published item or retracting the article under the relevant policy. Substantive changes must not be silent. Scholarly retraction does not by itself cancel CC BY 4.0; mandatory legal and court requirements are followed.

A breach of CC BY 4.0 terminates the infringing user’s rights under Section 6 of the licence. Rights may be reinstated automatically if the breach is cured within 30 days of the user discovering it, or through express reinstatement by the licensor. This does not remove claims for remedies and is not an editorial response deadline.

Editorial complaints follow the Complaints and Appeals Policy. A person may approach a competent authority or court independently of that process. Policy changes must state the update date and nature of the changes; previously lawfully granted rights are considered separately.

Legal basis and licence terms

Mandatory provisions of the legislation of the Republic of Uzbekistan apply. The full legal code defines the open licence; the explanations on this page do not replace it.

• Uzbekistan Law No. ZRU-42 on Copyright and Related Rights — Russian text
• CC BY 4.0 — summary
• CC BY 4.0 — full legal code
• Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing