Copyright in the networked world

Abstract

Purpose – This column looks at which rights matter, how to retain them, and which journal publishers already cooperate. Design/methodology/approach – It uses the requirements of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access, and examines the Creative Commons licences, the SPARC addendum, the project RoMEO list publishers' copyright policies, and the Emerald Journal Article Record form. Findings – If retaining rights to works in order to provide open access is a key part of the solution to the crisis in scholarly publishing, then significant progress has taken place. Practical implications – It remains to be seen whether having authors retain the right to provide open access will, over time, bring down journal costs. Enough publishers have cooperated that an opportunity now exists for repositories to begin to show what they can (or cannot) accomplish. Originality/value – It remains to be seen whether having authors retain the right to provide open access will, over time, bring down journal costs.