I'm in the process of setting up an account on Academia.edu and as you may know there is an area that allows you to add publications. My question is how does this work with a copyright agreement (Springer International Publishing) that I have signed?
For anyone that may have also signed this agreement: going by Section 3 it looks like I can upload a non-Springer formatted copy as long as I cite the Springer link as the final version?
I have heard people mention author copies before, but I'm not sure if this is a real thing or just a myth that's been circulated down the line (where you can host your papers as long as you make a slight change from the published copy).
The form if anyone is interested (direct download): Springer Copyright Form
Answer
The second paragraph of section 3 is relevant. Academia.edu is not specifically mentioned. If your funder requests that you deposit it on Academia.edu, you can do that. It is not your own website nor that of your department or faculty. The matter reduces to the meaning of "on his/her own website". From the perspective of Academia.edu, you are a user or member (not an owner). You do not have the ownership right of withholding access to the stuff that you have uploaded. They say that they may allow members to post their "content". I suspect, then, if you were to pay a copyright attorney to advise you, that you would be told that it is not "your own website". There's one way to find out (and many ways to find out how unanimous their opinions would be).
Also, romeo is useful but not decisive, and in case romeo is wrong, the language of the agreement is what would be enforced (as I know from experience).
[Addendum]
OTOH Springer has a totally different copyright transfer here. Note that this is for informational purposes only; it does say "any repository (after 12 months)". The message is rather mixed, and presumably has to do with the specific series.
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