Copyright and Open Licenses

Understanding Copyright and Open Licensing for academic works

Copyright is a key consideration when making your work open access.

The particular aspect of copyright that is relevant for your publication depends on which route to open access you are using and at what stage of the publication process you are.

Copyright considerations also differentiate between different versions of a scientific work:

Preprint: This version is the original submission to a journal; it has not yet been peer-reviewed.
Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM): This version, also known as the Postprint, has been accepted for publication but not yet formatted for the journal.
Published Version: Also known as the Version of Record, this is the final version of an article. The published version will have a DOI from the journal.

For more information on copyright issues in academic publishing, see this video featuring Dirk Visser, Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Leiden University and Martijn Katan, Professor of Nutrition at the Free University Amsterdam:

Note: The new link to SURF's website on copyright is: https://auteursrechten.nl/en/home/

Before you submit: The Rights Retention Strategy

Under the subscription model, authors typically sign away the rights to their work. However, the Rights Retention Strategy is a model agreement that an author can use to retain part of their copyright. If your publisher accepts this agreement you can place the full text of your publication (usually the AAM) on your personal page and publish it in open access in your university repository. If you wish to use your publication as material for your teaching, you do not need to request permission from your publisher.

For more information on how to make use of this model see the page on Self-Archiving and Repositories.

Creative Commons Licenses

Creative Commons (CC) licenses allow authors to grant others permission to use their work under specified conditions, while maintaining copyright of the work. Attaching a CC license to your work makes it easier for others to distribute and build upon it.

The table below gives an overview of the different CC licenses. The CC-BY license is the most permissive, allowing the broadest use of the work. Note that some universities and funders have policies for which CC licenses their employees/grantees are allowed to use, so be sure to check these requirements.

For more information on CC licenses, see this Guide from UKB.

After publication: Open Access via repositories

University libraries offer you the option of submitting the full text of your publications for inclusion in the institutional repository (see here for more information). Typically the published version of an article cannot be shared in this way under copyright, however a preprint or Author Accepted Manuscript often can, sometimes with an embargo period. To check which versions of an article are allowed to be shared and the conditions, you can use the JISC Open Policy Finder. Library staff will also check whether the version you supply may be shared worldwide via the repository before posting it.

Six months after publication: Making use of the Taverne Amendment to Dutch Copyright Law

Because of a provision in Dutch copyright law, it is now possible in many cases to publicly share the full text of short scientific works on institutional repositories 6 months after their publication date. For more information see the page on the Taverne Amendment.

Questions?

Most universities have a Copyright Information Point (AIP) to provide information and advice to academics about copyright in relation to open access. The AIP can also assist if you wish to use the Rights Retention Strategy to share your publication, for example, in the university repository. This service is usually attached to university libraries and you can reach out to them with any questions or for advice.

Resources for Researchers

SURF Website on Copyright

Auteursrechten.nl is a central resource for reliable information about copyright in higher education and research in the Netherlands.

Creative Commons Licenses Guide

This guide from the UKB aims to inform researchers about the Creative Commons (CC) license system.

JISC Open Policy Finder

The JISC Open Policy Finder provides information per journal about which versions of an article can be shared and under what conditions. You can also use it to find funder requirements for open access publishing.