Tag: Open Access

Can I apply a CC licence to my work if it incorporates non-CC licensed material?

2 February 2022 / Erica Levi

It depends on the purpose of your publication.

Technically, yes, you may apply one of the Creative Commons licences to your work even if it incorporates material used under fair dealing, which is another exception or limitation to copyright. Still, it is important to prominently mark any third-party material so re-users do not think the Creative Commons licence applies to that material.

The Creative Commons licence only applies to the rights you have in the work. For example, if your Creative Commons licensed slide deck includes a Flickr image you are using under any exceptions to copyright law, make sure to identify that image as not subject to the Creative Commons licence. For more information about incorporating work owned by others, see our page about marking third-party content.

Suppose you publish a new creation, for example, an Open Access journal article. In that case, it is better to seek permission from the copyright holder, making it clear that you will apply an open licence to the whole work. Whilst they’ll indicate to readers that their copyrighted resource is excluded from this licence, you cannot control downstream use. Unfortunately, it may increase the chance that the third-party copyright owner will reject the request, compared to a request for a ‘paywalled’ publication where distribution is more limited.

Extract from the Creative Commons’ Frequently Asked Questions webpage. It is available from https://creativecommons.org/faq/#may-i-apply-a-cc-license-to-my-work-if-it-incorporates-material-used-under-fair-use-or-another-exception-or-limitation-to-copyright [accessed on 2 February 2022]

The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.

How do I pick a Creative Commons licence for my work?

11 January 2022 / Erica Levi

The colourful infographic from Aston University (licensed CC-BY) is a tree diagram explaining how creators can choose different Creative Commons licenses. It presents green leaves on the tree branches, a blue sky with clouds in the background, and a grassy ground with flowers. The overall design is friendly and visually appealing, making the information accessible and easy to understand. The image is titled "Creative Commons Licence Chooser” and briefly explains Creative Commons licences. It reads: "Creative Commons (CC) licences complement copyright by permitting sharing and reuse of published content with conditions." The Tree Diagram Structure has multiple branches, each representing a different Creative Commons licence. The branches split on whether the licence will allow commercial use and whether adaptations of the work are permitted. Each branch has green leaves with text indicating the licence type and answers to specific questions about the licence conditions. Starting from the trunk, the first question is, “Allow adaptations of your work to be shared?”. A positive answer will follow with a further question, “Allow commercial uses of your work?” if the chooser’s answer is positive, then the work will be licensed CC BY (Attribution); if it is negative, the licence will be CC BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial). If the answer to the first question, “Allow adaptations of your work to be shared?” was positive if others share alike, a further question will follow again to ascertain whether commercial uses of the work will be allowed: if the chooser’s answer is positive, then the work will be licensed CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike); if it is negative, the licence will be CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike). If the answer to the first question, “Allow adaptations of your work to be shared?” was negative, a further question will follow again to ascertain whether commercial uses of the work will be allowed: if the chooser’s answer is positive, then the work will be licensed CC BY-ND (Attribution-NoDerivs); if it is negative, the licence will be; CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs)

Please note that commonly, the Non-Derivative element (ND) of a Creative Commons licence makes the work released NOT with an open licence.

Find here a further infographic, also from Aston University:

The image is an infographic titled "Creative Commons Licences - Know the Difference". It explains Creative Commons (CC) licences, which allow content creators to specify how others can use their work. There are six types of CC licences: CC BY (it allows others to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the work, even commercially, as long as credit is given to the original creator); CC BY-SA (others can remix, tweak, and build upon the work even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the creator and license new creations under identical terms); CC BY-ND (it allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and with credit to the creator); CC BY-NC (others can remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, and their new works must acknowledge the creator and be non-commercial; CC BY-NC-SA (others can remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as they credit the creator and license new creations under identical terms; and CC BY-NC-ND (it allows others to download the works and share them with others as long as they credit the creator, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially). The infographic includes icons representing each licence type and conditions, such as Attribution, No Derivative Works, Non-Commercial, and Share Alike.

Forward to Considerations on remixed/adapted and derivative works for Creative Commons licensed material

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The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.

How do I find a legal version of an e-publication?

22 December 2021 / Erica Levi

Some authors often upload their published version on ReseachGate and academia.edu when transferring their copyright to the publisher.

ReseachGate and academia.edu are commercial platforms, and most publishers do not allow authors to upload articles on those platforms because the existence of a published PDF online will cause them to lose income. There have been instances of publishers suing universities and authors for copyright breaches.

We cannot provide hyperlinks to documents posted on those platforms because linking to illegally posted sources online is unlawful.

So, what are the options?

Check if the library has the publication. If it is a journal article, then if we subscribe, you can provide the DOI to the article (starting with http://dx.doi.org/…). If it is a book, you may provide the permalink from Locate.
Find the publication on an institutional repository: a) look at the afflation of the authors. If it is from the UK or Europe and it is a post-2014 publication, likely, a version is legally deposited in the affiliated institutional repository; b) search on the browser for the name of the affiliation (e.g. “Coventry University”) plus the word ‘repository’. It will give you the link to the institutional repository; c) search for the title or author, and you may find the record and PDF; d) share that link openly.

What about hyperlinks and copyright?

How do I link to e-published articles?

Why shouldn’t we link directly to PDFs?

How do I reference sources?

What about hyperlinks and copyright?

The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.

How do I acknowledge Open Government licensed material?

14 December 2021 / Erica Levi

Open Government licensed material is released by the British government and licences to the public under certain conditions.

You must acknowledge the source of the information, including or linking to any attribution statement specified by the Information Provider(s) and, where possible, provide a link to the licence http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

If the Information Provider does not provide a specific attribution statement, you must use the following:

Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0

If you are using information from several information providers and listing multiple attributions is not practical for your product or application, you may include a URI or hyperlink to a resource that contains the required attribution statements.

The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.

What are Open Educational Resources?

13 December 2021 / Erica Levi

Open Educational Resources (OER) are educational materials that are shared at no cost with legal permissions for the public to freely use, share, and build upon the content (either in the public domain or under a CC licence permitting derivative works, such as CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC, or CC BY-NC-SA.

Educational resources are open when providing the public with permission to engage in the 5R activities:

Retain – permission to make, own and control copies of the content (download, duplicate, store and manage)
Reuse – permission to use the content in many ways (class, study group, website and video)
Revise – permission to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (translate into another language)
Remix – permission to combine content with other material to create something new (mashup)
Redistribute – permission to share the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others

The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.

What is Open Access in scholarship?

13 December 2021 / Erica Levi

The Open Access an orange open lock symbol.

Open Access (OA) is a set of principles and practices through which research output is distributed online free of charge.

OA aim to increase the impact and exploitation of scholarly communications in opposition to the limiting nature of the traditional fee-paying system.

Components of OA include:

Authors keep their copyright
Access to output without embargo
Application of a CC licence that enables text and data mining

A publication realised with a Creative Commons licence that includes the NonDerivative element is not considered Open Access.

GREEN Open Access

Usually, an earlier version (manuscript) of a publication is made freely available in a repository (self-archiving) through, for example:

University research repositories
Subject repositories, such as arXv or PubMed
Repositories managed by research funders, such as an example Zenodo

GOLD Open Access

The published version of the publication is made freely available upon publication by the publisher with an open licence. Open Access journals may charge an Article Processing Charge (APC) to make it open.

The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.