Dear Husain,

what concerns sharing already published papers on your RG profile, it is solely upon you to check whether you have the right to do so.

When you publish a paper, you generally provide a license to the publisher of your paper. The license can be either exclusive (meaning that you are not allowed to use your own work by publishing it or sharing it elsewhere, including RG) or non-exclusive (meaning that you are allowed to use your work). Before you share your paper here on RG, you need to find out which license you have provided to the original publisher and whether you have the right to share it publicly online. If you are not sure, better ask your publisher.

When you share a paper on RG, you do not transfer copyright or any rights to RG - it is only a platform that allows you to upload files. As such, RG is a information society service provider and EU law applies to its functioning (RG is based in Germany). RG is also considered as an intermediary service provider within the meaning of e-commerce directive (Directive 2000/31/EC) and according to Art. 14 RG is not liable for contents it is storing unless RG is aware of illegal activity (such as breach of copyright). Therefore, RG provides also guidelines on how to complain about copyright infringement.

You can find more information on the specialised RG page on copyright here: https://www.researchgate.net/application.IntellectualPropertyPolicy.html

Following

January 08th, 2018

Intellectual Property Policy

ResearchGate was developed by scientists to enable collaboration, sharing of content and communication among scientists, researchers, authors, institutions and other professionals. We respect the intellectual property rights of others and ask that you do the same. We have a process for submitting complaints regarding content posted by our members. Our policy and procedures are described below.

Posting content on ResearchGate

As a member, when you post full-text articles or supplementary materials on ResearchGate, you do not transfer or assign copyright to us. Rather, you make the content available to the public through ResearchGate. You retain the right to remove such content from ResearchGate at any time, or to archive your content so it is available only to you and your co-author(s). You may also remove content from appearing on your profile page.Our platform enables the private archiving and public posting of various types of content. If you choose to privately archive or publicly post content, we encourage you to first confirm your rights before doing so. This applies to posting content to your own profile as well as other places on the platform, such as in a Q&A forum or a project. As we do not have any information about rights you may hold, or any license terms or other restrictions which might apply to such content, we necessarily rely on you to understand your rights and act accordingly. For this reason, we request that you fully investigate and confirm that you have sufficient rights to post particular content to ResearchGate before you do so. As a general matter, if you are an author publishing in a journal, you may be allowed to publish certain versions of your article, but not others, and privately share certain content with others. However, many journals restrict publication of final versions and impose limitations on private sharing.Your starting point for understanding your rights is the agreement(s) you have with your publisher or other rights owner. If you’re still unsure about what you’re allowed to share on ResearchGate, we recommend that you get in touch directly with your publisher. There are other resources available that you might also find useful in understanding your rights, such as How Can I Share It (http://www.howcanishareit.com). We also provide some general information in our Help Center.

The always ask you if you have permission to upload a paper and I think they are doing their part

Thank you all for taking time to answer my query.

I had someone repost one of my papers where he made himself a co-author along with me. I sent him several messages to remind him that I have never met him, worked with him, or co-authored a paper with him. Yet, my paper remains listed as his co-authored publication. I have also notified Research Gate. It has been two years and it still looks like I published a paper with this person.