5.6 Benefits of publishing with a Creative Commons licence

There are a lot of misconceptions and misunderstanding surrounding the use of Creative Commons licences. It is important to understand and explain the benefits of using a CC licence to potential authors. The following points were made as part of the OAPEN-UK guide to Creative Commons and endorsed by Creative Commons:

  • The author keeps ownership of copyright
  • The six Creative Commons licences are flexible enough to say exactly what is and what is not allowed
  • They enable an author to modify copyright terms to best suit their needs
  • They ensure that authors get the credit they deserve for their work
  • Although once a Creative Commons licence is applied it cannot be altered, the author can waive the existing conditions or grant additional permissions
  • The author is not prevented from selling the work or making a profit, unless otherwise specified in their contract with the publisher
  • Creative Commons does not affect the format of the publication; print copies can still be produced
  • Depending on the agreement between the author and publisher, royalties, where received, are not affected
  • The peer review process is also unaffected
  • Third party content CAN be included in a work published under a Creative Commons licence subject to their agreement
  • The Creative Commons licence can be applied as an international licence
  • Breach of a Creative Commons licence can be pursued in a court of law
  • An author’s moral rights are unaffected (except in a CC0 licence)
  • An author can waive their right to attribution if the work is adapted or used in a way that they do not like.

Researchers, rightly, feel strongly about their intellectual output, which may often be the culmination of years of work. Creative Commons licences offer what appear to be significant changes in the way that work is made available to the public. It is understandable that they lead to some concern. CC BY licences do result in loss of control for authors, however, this is also the case to a certain extent at the moment, as it is the publisher who controls these permissions at present. The author has no rights in this respect in a traditional transfer of copyright.

However, there are some misunderstandings about what is permitted by the Creative Commons licences. Plagiarism and misuse of content, for example, are expressly prohibited by the terms of all Creative Commons licences. In many cases, the real concern is about what happens when breaches of these prohibitions occur, and this is where effort needs to be focused. Open access makes content available to a much wider audience, many of whom are not familiar with the conventions of academia, and CC BY licences give greater rights to reuse work, while still protecting the author’s moral rights. As a consequence there may be some users who do not respect the terms of the CC BY or other Creative Commons licences, either through malice or just through lack of understanding but this would be the same with any licence and terms and conditions of use. The main issue is to ensure that authors and publishers have a clear understanding of the importance of Creative Commons licences and copyright and that they are agreed as to how these licence terms will be enforced.

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

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