SEPM Consultant & Company License Membership

• Want to access SEPM copyrighted content online?
• Want to use SEPM content in client training?
• Want to use SEPM content in proprietary reports?

Copyright law is complex with several gray areas but basically to re-use copyrighted content a person needs permission of the copyright holder and often has to pay a fee to reuse the content (see SEPM Publications Permissions).  SEPM has created a new Society membership type that should be helpful to geoscientists that either individually or as part of a company engage in commercial training or proprietary reporting. This membership includes both online access to SEPM published, copyrighted content at www.sepmonline.org (including the Journal of Sedimentary Research, PALAIOS, and SEPM book series) as well as a license to use the content for for commercial works.

ACCESS

Having an entire library of SEPM journals and books online at your fingertips saves time and money. SEPM’s Geoscienceworld collection includes not only JSR and PALAIOS but SEPM’s Special Publications, Concepts in Sedimentology and Paleontology, Short Course Notes, Core Workshop Notes, Field Guides and its Miscellaneous book series.

LICENSE

Proper licensing permission to use copyrighted content can be a challenging, expensive, and time-consuming process as currently each and every item (image, graph, table, text section, etc.) needs to have its permission granted and paid for each time it is used, usually through the Copyright Clearance Center.  This special SEPM license agreement eliminates that work process by granting permission across SEPM’s copyrighted content as well as giving broad access to the content itself, all in one agreement.

If you are interested, please review the Agreement and contact Howard Harper (hharper@sepm.org) with any questions or return the application to him. 

 FINAL-Application and Special License Agreement.pdf

FAQs

1. How much does this membership cost? For the 2025 year an individual's fee is $1,000. The cost per person goes down for companies that have multiple people utilizing the membership.
2. Do I have a license to use SEPM Section publications as well?  Sorry not at this time, we are working with our sections to see if they want to also be part of this type of membership.
3. Can I continue to use SEPM content if I do not renew the license?  Both yes and no depending on circumstances.  SEPM hopes these memberships will be renewed each year and consultant training and reporting uses the latest information but if a report or training material is created during the license period it may continue to be used as long as none (SEPM's or others') content is updated. The date of any report or training material and its content should be within the effective date of the license.
4. How is the number of people using the content determined?  SEPM will trust the companies to report how many people actively use the SEPM content to create new reports or training materials.
5. How long is a license active?  As with other SEPM Memberships, it will run from January 1st to December 31st each year.
6. Can SEPM content be put into a database?  Sorry, no SEPM Content cannot be put into a database for internal or external access.  SEPM will consider special agreements for this use, see section 7D.
7. Can SEPM content be used for any AI purposes?  Sorry no, again see section 7D.