What is Open licensing?
The simple legal device underpinning Open culture
For a researcher, licensing may seem extraneous—something for librarians and publishers to worry about, not scientists. But copyright is a powerful tool for controlling who can access and use information—and that in turn impacts progress, and the pace of scientific advancement.
What makes Open Science so “Open”?
Open Science covers dozens of different tools and best-practices. But every element of Open Science, from preregistration to published peer review, has two things in common.
Why CC BY makes sense for science
There are several different Creative Commons licensing options. At PLOS, we use the Creative Commons Attribution (or CC BY) license.?
What distinguishes it from other options—and makes it so perfect for research in particular—is that it balances accelerated scientific advancement (through rapid, wide sharing and reuse) with scholarly credit (attribution).
The CC BY license states that…
Authors retain ownership of the copyright for their work. But, they grant permission for anyone to:
The material may be shared or adapted for any purpose, including commercially–so long as proper credit and attribution are given to the original authors.