Open Access Agreements: Creative Commons Licensing

Understanding open access and other licenses:

CC licenses apply to the paper as a whole, not to individual components.

Non-exclusive license (open access option)

Exclusive license

Copyright transfer

Copyrights include the right to

reproduce the work, (e.g. to make copies of all or parts of your work)

 to prepare derivative works, (remix a figure and use it in another paper, create an edited book of your papers)

to distribute copies, (add it to a repository, email to colleagues, post on social media)

to perform and display the work publicly (to reuse parts of your work for a conference poster or presentation) 

Non-exclusive license (Open Access option):

Language from ACM. “Granting a non-exclusive license for ACM to publish their work in the ACM Digital Library, while retaining all rights to their work, including copyright, and which allows for perpetual open access and the option to have their published work governed by a Creative Commons License upon publication.”

What it means. Your paper is published in the ACM Digital Library but you retain all of your rights, including copyright. Your work will be available openly and can be used in accordance with the Creative Commons license that you choose.

(Page content credit: Jessica Benner)

• CC BY: Attribution
  • “This license lets others distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon your work, even commercially, as long as they credit you for the original creation. This is the most accommodating of licenses offered. Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.” This license applies to the entire paper and its components; therefore, any component can be reused in accordance with the above statement.
  • Advantages: Increases visibility & remixing -  (1) Anyone, anywhere can read your work for free. (2) You and others can also redistribute, create a derivative or adapt the work in other ways. This is generally useful for reusing figures and tables from your previous papers.
  • Disadvantages: (1) You are responsible for enforcing your copyright if there is a violation/use without attribution (this is rare).
• CC BY-ND: Attribution-NoDerivs
  • “This license lets others reuse the work for any purpose, including commercially; however, it cannot be shared with others in adapted form, and credit must be provided to you.” This license applies to the entire paper and its components; therefore no component can be adapted without your permission and any reuse must be attributed.
  • Advantages: Increases visibility but only you can make derivatives – (1) Creative commons explicitly state that the ND license prohibits others from remixing, transforming, or building upon the material under the terms of the license. That said, you can still give permission to others to do those things, it just isn’t allowed by the license.  (1) Anyone anywhere can read your work for free. You and others can redistribute (i.e., send/post it) but only you can create derivative works. There is often confusion about this because people think ‘if I’m not altering the figure, I should be able to use it’ but the license applies to the paper as a single unified work, not to its constituent components.
  • Disadvantages: (1) People are going to be required to contact you to re-use parts of the paper in future works. (2) You are responsible for enforcing your copyright if there is a violation/use without attribution (this is rare).
• CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommerical  
  • “This license allows for others to remix or otherwise alter the original material (with proper attribution), provided that they are not using it for any commercial purpose. There is no restriction on how the new material is licensed. This license applies to the entire paper and its components; therefore any component can be reused in accordance with the above statement as long as it is a non-commercial use.
  • Advantages: Increases visibility & remixing- (1) Anyone, anywhere can read your work for free. (2) You and others can redistribute and adapt the work in other ways so long as it is not commercial purposes. (3) You and your co-authors can still use the work commercially.
  • Disadvantages: (1) If a PhD student wishes to incorporate portions of the work (e.g. figure or table) and they plan to put their dissertation in the Proquest database, they need to get permission from at least one of the authors of the paper. This is because ProQuest sells copies on the dissertations on demand and also subscriptions to the Dissertation and Theses database and those are considered commercial activities. (2) You are responsible for enforcing your copyright if there is a violation/use without attribution (this is rare).
• CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs
  • “This license is the most restrictive of our six main licenses, only allowing others to download your works and share them with others as long as they credit you, but they can’t change them in any way or use them commercially.” This license applies to the entire paper and its components; therefore no component can be changed, if shared you will be attributed, and no commercial uses are allowed.
  • Advantages: (1) If you want to monetize the article, this restricts other commercial uses. (2) Still increases visibility, retains rights to derivatives and restricts commercial use - Anyone anywhere can read your work for free. You and others can redistribute but only you can create derivative works. No one can use your work for commercial profit.
  • Disadvantages: (1) If anyone wants to reuse a portion of the work (e.g. figures and tables) in their works, they need to get permissions from at least one of the authors of the paper to reuse the content. (2) You are responsible for enforcing your copyright if there is a violation/use without attribution (this is rare).