Open access publishing aims to make research publications available for anyone to read and reuse, Creative Commons licences are often used because they offer an internationally established legal structure that is aligned with the aims of open access.

Creative Commons (CC) is an international not-for-profit organisation which aims to improve clarity about what people can do with published content. CC licences are used by all kinds of content creators – photographers, musicians, artists, Wikipedia contributors and people collecting data, to give just a few examples, for researchers, this generally means academic books or journal articles. Creative Commons licences are available in three different versions, a simplified version, a legal version, which is the actual licence, and a machine readable licence. The simplified version and machine readable version link to the full version.

The link between Creative Commons licences and open access has often meant that Creative Commons licences are assigned as part of a licence to publish. In this case, copyright usually remains with the author. However, as with many aspects of aspects of publishing, this is all subject to the agreement between the publisher and the author, and there is no reason why the author should not assign copyright to the publisher on the condition that their work is subsequently licensed using Creative Commons.

Open access academic publishers in the sciences, such as PLOS, have been using CC BY licences for a number of years to disseminate peer-reviewed articles, and the Budapest Open Access Initiative a key driver of open access developments in Europe – has recommended CC BY as the preferred licence for open access publication.

This section of OAWAL has been adapted from the

‘Guide to Creative Commons for Humanities and Social Science monograph authors’

The guide was written by Ellen Collins, Caren Milloy and Graham Stone and peer reviewed by UK academics, checked by legal experts, approved by Creative Commons and part funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and is an example of Creative Commons licensing in action!

 

5.1         Creative Commons licences
5.2         Institutional polices and copyright
5.3         Funder mandates
5.4         Third Party rights and author rights
5.5         Commercial Use Questions
5.6         Benefits of publishing with a Creative Commons licence

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.