Overview Authors and publishers will generally have a publishing agreement (sometimes referred to as an author or licence agreement) in place when a work is published. Publishing agreements vary between publishers and will also vary depending on whether or not the work is being published as a book, book chapter, journal article or conference paper. Some publishers do not use publishing agreements, in which case, they only have the right to publish the work for the purpose it was submitted. For example, if an author submits an article to a particular journal and there is no agreement in place, the publisher can only publish the article in the issue for which it was submitted. They would not be able to re-publish the article in an annual collection of popular articles without the permission of the author.

Please use the sharing tools found via the share button at the top or side of articles. Copying articles to share with others is a breach of FT.com T&Cs and Copyright Policy. Email licensing@ft.com to buy additional rights. Subscribers may share up to 10 or 20 articles per month using the gift article service. More information can be found at https://www.ft.com/tour. https://www.ft.com/content/c21e2053-0373-4b8e-80b7-fad10f235604 This June, as I packed for a trip to London, I realised I couldn’t find a single mask in my house, nor in any of the stores by my house in Tel Aviv. It had been months since anyone had needed one in Israel, one of the fastest- and most-vaccinated nations in the world. By mid-March, Israelis were partying as lockdowns ended and by April, masks had more or less vanished, turning the tiny country into a tantalising glimpse of a post-pandemic future.