Copyright and Licensing Policy

Conditions governing the retention of copyright, the grant of publication rights to the journal, and the reuse of articles, illustrations and supplementary materials.

Contents

1. Legal framework and ownership of rights
2. Permission to publish and authors' confirmations
3. CC BY 4.0 open licence
4. Attribution and indication of changes
5. Third-party materials and licence exceptions
6. Supplementary materials, data and software code
7. Self-archiving and redistribution
8. Limits of the licence and automated uses
9. Licence notices and previously published articles
10. Infringements, enquiries and corrections

01. Legal framework and ownership of rights

This policy applies to materials published in Technosphere Safety. Its legal framework comprises the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan No. ZRU-42 of 20 July 2006, "On Copyright and Related Rights", as currently amended, other applicable legislation and international treaties of the Republic of Uzbekistan.

Authors retain the copyright rights belonging to them. The journal does not require the transfer of exclusive rights to an article. Authors' moral rights, including the rights of authorship, attribution and protection of reputation, are retained and are inalienable; authors are not required to waive their exercise (Article 18 of the Law).

The rightful copyright holder is established before publication. For works created in the course of employment, exclusive rights may belong to the employer unless otherwise specified in an agreement (Article 34). Authors must obtain the necessary authority from their employer, co-authors or other rights holders. A publisher's rights concerning a journal as a publication (Article 17) do not automatically confer ownership of copyright in every individual article.

02. Permission to publish and authors' confirmations

Before publication, authors or an authorised rights holder grant the publisher the non-exclusive right to publish the article for the first time in the journal and distribute it under CC BY 4.0. The permission covers agreed editorial preparation and typesetting, reproduction in print and electronic formats, online publication, distribution, inclusion in issues, preservation and archiving, and dissemination of bibliographic metadata.

Permission is documented in writing, including through a duly executed electronic document, in compliance with Articles 38, 39 and 42 of the Law. The agreement specifies the modes of use, territory — worldwide, term — the period of protection of the relevant rights, agreement to CC BY 4.0, and conditions of author remuneration subject to mandatory legal requirements. This informational text does not replace a properly executed agreement; merely uploading a file does not establish all necessary authority.

The corresponding author confirms approval of the final version by all co-authors, the lawful grant of rights and disclosure of restrictions. Substantial editorial changes are agreed with the authors. Previously posted preprints must be disclosed at submission; the right of first journal publication does not imply that no preprint existed. Fees for publication services, where provided for in a separate policy, do not constitute the purchase of copyright.

03. CC BY 4.0 open licence

Articles are published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Subject to its conditions, the licence permits copying, distribution, translation and adaptation of materials covered by it, including for commercial purposes, without separate permission. Applicable statutory exceptions, copyright limitations and the public domain retain their independent significance.

• When distributing materials, users must retain attribution, copyright and licence notices supplied by the rights holder, applicable warranty disclaimers and a reference to the source, to the extent reasonably practicable.
• Changes must be indicated, information about previous modifications must be retained, and a link to CC BY 4.0 or its text must be provided. Users must not imply that the authors or journal endorse them or their use.
• Additional legal restrictions or technological measures that prevent exercise of the rights granted by the licence must not be imposed.

Under CC BY 4.0, the permission granted to users who comply with the licence is irrevocable. Removing a material from a website or changing the journal's policy does not, by itself, terminate a licence previously granted. Mandatory legal provisions continue to apply; matters concerning withdrawal of a work under Article 18 of the Law are considered separately and are not equivalent to automatic cancellation of all users' rights.

04. Attribution and indication of changes

For scholarly reuse, it is recommended to provide the authors, article title, journal, year, volume, issue, pages or article number, DOI or persistent link, and licence. A complete bibliographic citation is a standard of scholarly referencing; it is not imposed as 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 texts or images approved by the authors and editorial office. Redistribution does not permit misappropriation of authorship, concealment of the original publication or presentation of an adaptation as a new and independent original article.

05. Third-party materials and licence exceptions

Authors must verify the rights applicable to reused figures, photographs, maps, tables, text excerpts, questionnaires and other protected materials. Citing a source does not, by itself, replace permission where permission is necessary. Unauthorised use is permitted only to the extent allowed by applicable law or the source licence.

To include such material under the article's general licence, the authors must possess rights allowing distribution 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 caption must explicitly identify the rights holder, source, separate conditions and exclusion of that material from the article's CC BY 4.0 licence.

Where there is insufficient legal authority, the material must be replaced or excluded before publication. Readers must separately check the conditions governing explicitly excluded materials; the journal cannot grant rights beyond those it holds.

06. Supplementary materials, data and software code

Textual and illustrative supplementary materials created by the authors and published as part of the article are covered by CC BY 4.0 unless different conditions are stated beside a specific object. Exceptions must be visible both in the article and in the supplementary file itself.

For standalone datasets, software code, models and materials in external repositories, their own licence, version and permanent link must be specified. The article's licence does not automatically extend to them. An appropriate software licence should be selected for code; rights concerning databases, third-party rights and lawful access restrictions must be considered for data.

Unprotected facts do not become subject to exclusive copyright merely because they are included in an article. However, a creative form of presentation and a protected database structure may have independent protection. Data availability, documentation and permissible disclosure restrictions are addressed in the Data Availability and Research Reproducibility Policy.

07. Self-archiving and redistribution

Authors may deposit preprints, accepted author manuscripts and published versions of articles in institutional and subject repositories, on personal websites and other lawful platforms without an embargo imposed by the journal. Each version must be accurately identified; after publication, a bibliographic citation, DOI where available and licence information must be added.

Preprints and accepted manuscripts must indicate the terms actually granted by the rights holder for the relevant version. The CC BY 4.0 licence of the published version is not automatically assigned to every earlier file. When the published version is redistributed, its licence notices and exceptions for third-party materials must be preserved.

The open licence does not extend to confidential reviews, editorial correspondence, signed consent forms or users' personal information. Depositing a version in a repository must not create the false impression of a separate new publication or conceal a correction or retraction of the article.

08. Limits of the licence and automated uses

CC BY 4.0 does not grant patent rights, trademark rights or permission to use another person's personal data or image. Inalienable moral rights remain protected to the extent provided by applicable law. Permission to use a work does not mean that a research participant has consented to every further use of information concerning them.

Automated text and data analysis, including use by companies developing artificial intelligence, is permitted to the extent that the relevant actions fall within CC BY 4.0 or are authorised by law. Licence requirements also apply to machine processing and distribution of protected excerpts. This policy does not authorise access to confidential materials or circumvention of access controls.

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

09. Licence notices and previously published articles

Every published article, including its full HTML and PDF texts, must identify the actual rights holder, year and CC BY 4.0 with a link to the licence. This information must be consistent with the article webpage and deposited metadata. Where rights belong to the authors, the notice "© [Year] Author(s)" is used; another rights holder is identified only where supported by documented grounds.

A notice concerning rights in the website, its design, logos or the issue as a whole does not replace the copyright notice for an individual article. Such a notice must not restrict reuse of an article permitted by its licence.

For archived materials, the terms of each specific publication must be checked. A revised policy does not, by itself, change an earlier licence or convert materials with uncertain status to CC BY 4.0. Relicensing requires sufficient rights; changes must be documented transparently, preserving information about permissions previously granted. Errors in notices must be corrected on article webpages, in files and in metadata.

10. Infringements, enquiries and corrections

Reports of infringement should be submitted to the editorial office at technosphere@tiiame.uz. The report should identify the article or DOI, disputed object, source, nature of the infringement and evidence of the reporter's rights or authority. Unnecessary personal documents should not be submitted.

The editorial office examines the grounds and documentation, requests explanations and suspends publication where necessary. After publication, measures may include clarification of attribution or licensing, a correction, restriction of access to a specific unlawfully included object or retraction of the article under the applicable policy. Significant changes must not be made silently. Scientific retraction of an article does not, by itself, cancel CC BY 4.0; binding legal requirements and court orders must be followed.

A violation of CC BY 4.0 terminates the infringing user's rights according to Section 6 of the licence. Automatic reinstatement is possible if the violation is remedied within 30 days after the user becomes aware of it, or the rights may be reinstated by express decision of the licensor. This provision does not remove obligations to compensate harm and does not establish the editorial office's response deadline.

Procedures for editorial enquiries are established in the Complaints and Appeals Policy. Contacting a competent authority or court is permitted independently of those procedures. When this policy changes, the date and nature of the changes must be identified; rights previously granted lawfully are considered separately.

Legal framework and licence terms

Mandatory provisions of the legislation of the Republic of Uzbekistan apply. The terms of the open licence are determined by its complete legal text; the explanations provided here do not replace that text.

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