In the US, copyright exists automatically in an original work of authorship once it is fixed in a tangible medium. It can be enhanced by registering the work. See https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ01.pdf

Hi May

We must first cite the sources we use from third parties, whose authorship does not belong to us. Second, we acquire the copyright when we register with the institution in charge of the legal deposit and the ISSN Third, we maintain the authorship of a research article published in a journal. Yes. Only that the scientific journal acquires the rights for its visibility and reproduction for a specific time. And any researcher who makes use of the published work must refer it

Hi May,

good questions.

- when using information from a website, you need to include your source in references, typically as a web address and time you accessed it (the time is important as the websites tend to change from time time). There is no concern with copyright as long as you use data (such as numbers) or short excerpts from the web and you add appropriate references. Should you intend to use larger excerpts, such as entire pictures or tables or long paragraphs, without modification, you should ask the copyright owner for permission.

- What happens to the IP (copyright) when submitting a paper to the journal?

First, I suppose you are a student or employee of the University, thus the copyright (and all IP generated by your work) would be attributed to the institution you are affiliated with. I do not expect Saudi law is any different on this aspect. Still, you are the author or inventor, but the IP belongs to the University. Most institutions have programs to reward the inventors in case the invention gets sold to a third party.

Second, upon submitting the paper, your institution usually retains the copyright for the CONTENT of your article (author manuscript). The publisher then obtains copyright on the final version of the article as it appears in the journal. This is possible because the copyright covers the work of art as a whole and your paper and the final version are different works of art.

Therefore, you are free to share (even publicly) your author manuscript, but you are not allowed to share publicly the article as it appears in the journal.

Last, but not least, to be on the safe side, please check the contract with the publisher before sharing. Some publishers may require even the copyright to the content be transferred to them or do otherwise limit your sharing rights.

Thank you so much