For the policy, we define the following three stages in publication:

• Stage 1: The Submitted Pre-print is a manuscript submitted to a journal/conference for review. The authors have the copyright of this version.
• Stage 2: The Accepted Pre-print, is an updated version of the submitted pre-print created by the authors after the peer-reviews. The authors have the copyright of the updated version.
• Stage 3: Published, is the version created by the journal which includes their copy-editing, proof-reading and formatting. The journal has the copyright of this version, as authors are asked to explicitly transfer their copyright to the journal. (Note that in some journals/conferences the copyright is “Creative Commons License”, and in that case, the authors have the right to use the Published paper as in the case of Accepted Pre-prints for open access purposes.)