The Copyright Law of the United States provide authors with the exclusive rights to do and authorize the following:
The SHERPA/RoMEO website allows you to search for the journal or publisher you are interested in and see their copyright and self-archiving policies.
Publisher policies and agreements are usually linked from the author information or article submission section of a journal’s website.
If you cannot find the policy for the journal or publisher in the SHERPA database, you can contact the publisher and negotiate with them over which rights you would like to retain.
“Predatory journals and publishers are entities that prioritize self-interest at the expense of scholarship and are characterized by false or misleading information, deviation from best editorial and publication practices, a lack of transparency, and/or the use of aggressive and indiscriminate solicitation practices.”
Predatory journals do not care about advancing scholarship in a given field, they are concerned with their own self-interest, which is usually financial in nature.
Predatory journals often have the following characteristics:
Grudniewicz, A., et. al. (2019). Predatory journals: No definition, no defense. Nature, 576, 210-212. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03759-y