University Library

Choosing the right license in Open Access

In the case of an Open Access publication, you can choose various Open Content licenses and different versions of publishing agreements.

For the assumption of publication costs, please choose the CC-BY license provided by Creative Commons for articles and CC-BY or CC-BY-SA for other works without further restrictive additions.

In this case, the transfer of rights to the publisher is done as a "non-exclusive" or "simple" transfer. In this way, you remain in possession of your rights of use and are not bound by the legal requirements of the publisher.

Such an adjustment is often possible subsequently, after the publication contract has been concluded, if you indicate that your publication will not otherwise be funded. After publication, changes are usually no longer possible.

CC-NC module problem

The CC-BY and CC-BY-SA licenses are considered "true" open access licenses.
Only by using them is subsequent use possible for any responsible (and thus in principle also commercial) purpose.

In contrast, the NC (= NonCommercial) component is particularly controversial, as it is not clear in which cases a commercial use exists. This module excludes use for all purposes that are not financed exclusively by the state or by donations. This can eliminate many types of use for science. Platforms of free knowledge communities, scientific platforms that refinance themselves through advertising revenue, or private and non-profit educational and research institutions cannot simply use content licensed under NC or post it on their platforms in many cases.

Background

DFG, Wissenschaftsrat, representatives of the Alliance of Scientific Institutions strongly advise to abandon the NC component and do not consider OA publications where the CC licenses are granted by the publisher and not by the authors as worthy of funding.

By focusing its funding on publications under CC-BY and CC-BY-SA, Tübingen University Library would like to ensure that financial support for Open Access publications contributes to the spread of the Open Access idea.

Details on each of the aforementioned aspects can be found on the following pages:
https://www.projekt-deal.de/faq-for-authors/
https://open-access.network/en/information/legal-issues/publishing-agreements
Recommendations on the Transformation of Academic Publishing: Towards Open Access / Publisher: Wissenschaftsrat