Distributing published papers if I am the first author In some interviews for industry positions, I have been asked about my prior (applied math) research experience and to go into detail about the models I have constructed. After I gave him a high-level overview, the interviewer asked that I send him the paper so he can see some minute details. The paper is published in a Springer journal and costs 39.95 to see without journal subscription. My questions are


  
  As the first author of the paper, am I legally allowed I send him a downloaded version of the paper over email?
  If not, am I legally allowed to send my personal copy of the manuscript (i.e. the version I submitted to Springer)?
  


N.B. the paper is not on the arXiv.
Different publishers have different guidelines, but I think they all allow your first case. For example, Elsevier's author rights page states:


  Authors transfer copyright to the publisher as part of a journal publishing agreement, but have the right to:
  
  
  Share their article for Personal Use, Internal Institutional Use and Scholarly Sharing purposes, with a DOI link to the version of record on ScienceDirect (and with the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC- ND license for author manuscript versions)
  ...
  


If you're worried, I do recommend checking each publisher's page to verify your rights.