Copyright and Licensing Policy

Copyright Ownership

All articles published in the International Review of FinTech Business and Management (IRFBM) remain the intellectual property of their respective authors. Authors retain full copyright over their published work without unnecessary restrictions.

The Academy of Decision and Data Sciences (ADDS) and IRFBM do not claim ownership of the authors’ content. By submitting and publishing a manuscript, authors grant the journal a non-exclusive licence to publish, reproduce, archive, index, distribute, and promote the work in print and electronic formats.

Each published article will include the following copyright statement:

© [Year] The Author(s).

This statement confirms that copyright remains with the author or authors.

Licensing Terms

All articles published in IRFBM are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0).

Under this licence, readers and other users may:

  • Read, download, copy, share, distribute, and reproduce the published work.
  • Adapt, transform, translate, or build upon the work.
  • Use the material for academic, educational, professional, or commercial purposes.
  • Reuse the content in any medium or format.

Users must provide appropriate credit to the original author or authors, acknowledge IRFBM as the original publication source, and clearly indicate whether any changes were made to the original work.

The applicable licence information will be displayed on the journal website and within the published version of each article.

Author Rights

Authors retain the right to:

  • Share their published articles through institutional or subject-based repositories.
  • Upload their work to personal websites, academic networking platforms, and other public repositories.
  • Use the article in teaching, presentations, conferences, reports, dissertations, and future publications.
  • Reproduce parts of the work in books, edited volumes, or other scholarly materials.
  • Retain all moral, intellectual, and attribution rights associated with the work.

IRFBM does not impose an embargo period on self-archiving. Authors may deposit the submitted, accepted, or published version of their article, subject to proper citation of the original publication.

No fee is charged for exercising these author rights.

Rights Granted to the Journal

By submitting a manuscript to IRFBM, authors grant the journal a non-exclusive right to:

  • Publish the article online and, where applicable, in print.
  • Reproduce and distribute the article in different formats.
  • Archive and preserve the article for long-term scholarly access.
  • Index the article in academic databases, search engines, repositories, and bibliographic services.
  • Promote and disseminate the article through academic, professional, and digital platforms.
  • Include the article in journal collections, special issues, and archival systems.

The non-exclusive nature of this licence means that authors may continue to use, share, and reproduce their work after publication.

IRFBM will not impose any restriction that conflicts with the conditions of the CC BY 4.0 licence.

Use of Third-Party Material

Authors are responsible for ensuring that all third-party material included in their manuscripts is used legally and ethically.

Third-party material may include:

  • Figures
  • Photographs
  • Illustrations
  • Tables
  • Charts
  • Survey instruments
  • Scales and measurement items
  • Maps
  • Datasets
  • Software outputs
  • Previously published text

Authors must obtain written permission from the copyright holder whenever the material is not covered by fair use, public-domain status, or an open licence that permits reuse.

All reused material must be properly cited and acknowledged. Authors must also clearly identify any material that is not covered by the article’s CC BY 4.0 licence.

If permission cannot be obtained, the material must be removed or replaced before publication.

Author Responsibility

Authors are responsible for confirming that:

  • The submitted manuscript is original.
  • The manuscript does not infringe the copyright, privacy, confidentiality, or intellectual property rights of any person or organisation.
  • All sources and reused materials are properly acknowledged.
  • Necessary permissions have been obtained before submission.
  • The manuscript has not been published elsewhere in substantially the same form.
  • All co-authors have agreed to the submission and publication of the work.

Any copyright dispute arising from unauthorised use of material will primarily remain the responsibility of the author or authors.

Open Access and Reuse

IRFBM follows an open-access publishing model. Published articles are made freely available to readers without subscription or access charges.

Readers may access and reuse published material according to the conditions of the CC BY 4.0 licence. Proper attribution must include, where available:

  • The name of the author or authors
  • The title of the article
  • The name of the journal
  • The year of publication
  • The volume and issue number
  • The article identifier or digital object identifier

Reuse must not falsely suggest that the author, journal, editor, or publisher endorses the user, organisation, product, or modified version.

Copyright Infringement

IRFBM respects intellectual property rights and takes allegations of copyright infringement seriously.

Any person who believes that material published by the journal infringes copyright may contact the editorial office at:

editor.irfbm@addsacademy.com

The complaint should include:

  • Identification of the copyrighted work.
  • Identification of the allegedly infringing material.
  • Evidence of copyright ownership or authority to act for the copyright holder.
  • Contact details of the complainant.
  • A clear explanation of the alleged infringement.

The editorial team will review the complaint and may temporarily restrict access to the material while the matter is investigated. Where an infringement is confirmed, the journal may correct, replace, retract, or remove the affected content.

Policy Updates

The International Review of FinTech Business and Management and the Academy of Decision and Data Sciences reserve the right to revise this policy in response to changes in copyright law, scholarly publishing standards, open-access practices, or journal procedures.

Any substantial amendment will be published clearly on the journal website. The version of the policy applicable at the time of publication will normally govern the licensing status of an article unless a legal or ethical requirement requires otherwise.