What are Creative Commons (CC) licenses?

Copyright is a legal right which protects the intellectual property in a creative work.  It covers the right to copy or reproduce a work, to sell and distribute those copies to the public, and to adapt the work and create derivatives.

CC licenses offer an easy way to allow others to use a copyrighted work, and define how a work may be shared or reused. They are an important aspect of OA publishing and accelerating science.

 

Creative Commons licenses provide a standardized way to grant the public permissions to use their creative work under copyright law and describe permitted ways of such re-use. There are six different types of Open Access (OA) licences.


Springer Nature supports CC licensing and offers CC BY, CC BY NC and CC BY NC ND, but please note that the offer depends on the licence offered by the journal as well as other criteria, such as funder requirements <link to the aricle on funder requirements>.

For more information about OA licences at Springer Nature, please visit our copyright and licensing guide


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