Copyright issues
Just like with traditional reuse of material for education and research, copyright issues must be considered when implementing Open Access strategies or operating Open Access repositories and Open Access journals.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWZ_ZYbAIyg
Copyright in higher education
In the Netherlands, the website 'Copyright in higher education' provides background information and suggests practical ways of dealing with copyright issues for the re-use of material for educaiton and research. The answers relate to the Dutch situation and may not always be applicable for other countries.
Practical tools
SURFfoundation has developed a number of practical tools to help authors determine which copyright rights they are transferring to their publisher and how the arrangements made can be recorded:
- Licence to Publish
Standard model to record publication arrangements in an agreement (licence). - Copyright Toolbox
A step-by-step plan for drawing up an agreement or to use relevant components so as to adapt an existing agreement. - Checklist of publication agreements
A method for determining what elements are important for both authors and publishers when publishing a work.
Publisher copyright policies & self-archiving
By now, most publishers allow their authors to self-archive their articles in institutional repositories or on their own personal websites. However, conditions and restrictions are frequently imposed. For example, authors are often obliged to observe an embargo period between the publication date and the date on which the document is made openly accessible online. The SHERPA/RoMEO Listings provide information on the self-archiving policies of individual publishers. Many of those authors whose publishers do not yet allow self-archiving supplement their standard publishing agreements with contract addenda which enable them to provide open access to their work in parallel with publication. Such addenda can also be used to avoid embargo periods.
Open content licences
In order to give authors and users of open-access contributions legal certainty, such contributions should be distributed only under an open-content licence. Repository operators must pay particular attention to the liability risks involved in the operation of a repository. Moreover, data-protection aspects play a very important role when it comes to open access to research data.
Creative Commons
Creative Commons is a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright licenses known as Creative Commons licenses. With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify yourself.