Member Obligation by Crossref

https://www.crossref.org/member-obligations/

Thanks for your interest in joining Crossref and participating in the scholarly content network.

We trade as Crossref but we are registered as Publishers International Linking Association (PILA) Inc. Your agreement will be with PILA and is based on the by-laws of the State of New York.

Here is a summary of your contract and the terms that set out your commitments as a member:

Your first year’s membership fee is payable before your account is created and ready for use. You’ll receive an invoice soon after applying.

You are charged a fee for each content item whose metadata you register with us. Fees vary per content type and are lower for backfiles. Review the content registration fees. They are invoiced quarterly.

You commit to depositing comprehensive and accurate metadata and registering Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) for your content using the Crossref System.

You must assign Crossref DOIs and deposit metadata to all journal content published after joining Crossref.

You commit to maintaining and updating your metadata and DOIs for the long term. DOIs are designed to be persistent in order to preserve the citation record, so should never be deleted.

You commit to updating URLs associated with all registered content, redepositing metadata if your content moves.

You must have your DOIs resolve to a page containing complete bibliographic information for the content with a link to—or information about—getting the full text of the content. You must include the DOI on the response page using Crossref DOI display guidelines, and use the DOI as the permanent link to the page. (Note that Crossref never gives (and cannot give) access to your full-text - your access policy remains at your own discretion. Our add-on service, Crossmark, helps you record and display updates, corrections, retractions and other information about your content).

You commit to actively maximizing links with other Crossref members by linking out from the references in your journal articles, (using DOIs retrieved from Crossref), and where possible from other content types too.

You may appoint a sponsor to act on your behalf to register metadata or look up references. A sponsor can represent any number of members.

You must have the necessary rights (non-exclusive) for the content you register.

Crossref accepts preprints (called “posted content”) that may subsequently be formally published. The preprint must be linked to the related version of record. There are additional obligations related to registering preprints.