By “open access” to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.
Budapest Open Access Initiative, 2002; emphasis added.
Open access comprises two components: access that is free of charge, and reuse that is free of at least some copyright and licensing restrictions.
The reuse of scientific information makes the research cycle more efficient.
Third parties’ rights of use in open access publications are set out in usage licences.
The author(s) and right holder(s) of such [open access] contributions grant(s) to all users a free, irrevocable, worldwide, right of access to, and a license to copy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship… .
Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, 2003; emphasis added.
Libre or Just Gratis?
According to the definitions in the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, open access means not only that scientific information is accessible free of charge but also – and just as importantly – that it can be reused freely.
Open access publications can be divided into two categories: gratis open access and libre open access. Although unfamiliar, these terms refer to an important difference in the ways a freely accessible publication can be reused:
- Gratis open access means that a publication can be read and printed free of charge (Suber, 2008).
- Libre open access refers to broader use permitted through open licences, such as Creative Commons licences (Suber, 2008).
According to the definitions in the Budapest Open Access Initiative and the Berlin Declaration, the only true version of open access is libre open access. In other words, reusability is a necessary component of open access publications. So, there is more to open access than just making a file available free of charge on the Internet.
Quelle: Based on Suber, P. (2008, August). Gratis and libre open access. SPARC Open Access Newsletter. https://sparcopen.org/our-work/gratis-and-libre-open-access (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Advantages of Reuse
The global digital networking of science offers the potential for better access to and reusability of scientific findings. This enables new approaches to scientific questions and promotes scientific collaboration. Moreover, information can be shared more quickly, research cycles shortened, and scientific progress accelerated. By dismantling barriers to participation in scientific discourse, this benefits not only the scientific community and the public at large but also historically, geographically, and sociologically disadvantaged groups.
In the area of research data, the FAIR principles (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) describe the various aspects of the reusability of data publications. They focus not only on making reuse technically and legally possible but also on the preparation and enrichment of the (meta-)data by the data collectors in order to facilitate their reuse in the research process. As texts are easier to process than data, this type of preparation is not necessary for text publications, such as journal articles and books. However, making the underlying research data available together with the text publication can enhance the reusability of the results.
Examples of Reuse
- Via arXiv, which is used intensively in physics and mathematics, and other repositories, researchers make their findings available to the public as preprints prior to peer review and publication, thereby enabling their speedy dissemination and reuse. A shortening of the time between submission and publication can also be observed for “classical” publications in peer-reviewed open access journals (Hopf et al., 2022).
- The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) operates according to the principle that the rights of users and the copyright terms must be clearly specified through licensing, so that open access can function effectively. For that reason, DOAJ accepts only libre open access journals that regulate the reuse of articles through licences.
Clarity Through Licences
Usage licences are granted in order to make it clear how research results may be reused. It is up to the authors to decide what degree of freedom of use of their works they wish to allow. The right of quotation pursuant to Section 51 of the German Copyright Act (UrhG) allows authors to incorporate quotations from works or parts of works of third parties into their own works without authorisation. However, the latter works must be independent of the quoted works. When quoting from works of third parties, the original text must be quoted; it may not be adapted or otherwise transformed (Dreier, 2018, Marginal Note 7). By granting a licence, authors clearly indicate that the licensed work may be reused under certain conditions over and above the right to read and quote it. The rights of reuse thereby granted may range from verbatim reproduction to publication of a modified version of the work.
An overview of different licence models is provided on our Licences page. Granting specific rights of use on the basis of such licences gives users explicit information on how the document may be further used and simplifies legal enforcement in the event of misuse. At the same time, the author reserves the right to permit further types of use in separate agreements. The Bertelsmann Stiftung's guide to the use of open licences explains this step by step (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2016). In this context, it is important not to grant exclusive rights of use to the publisher in publishing agreements, as such a transfer of rights is incompatible with licensing by the author.
The open licences from Creative Commons (CC licences) are the most commonly used licences in the area of science and research. According to the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities, in particular the adaptation and use of works for any responsible purpose (and therefore in principle also for commercial purposes) should be permissible. Thus, from the perspective of the Berlin Declaration, only the CC-BY und CC-BY-SA licences comprehensively support the key aspect of reusability. The NC (NonCommercial) component, in particular, is frequently controversial, as it is often unclear what cases constitute commercial use. For example, publications whose licences include an "NC" component may not be used on commercial platforms such as most social media services. Nor may they be used by private or non-profit education providers and associations that charge fees for certain services to cover costs. Therefore, many agencies advise against using the NC component. For answers to the most frequently asked questions about Creative Commons licences, see the list of FAQs on the CC website.
Free, worldwide access to a publication in combination with granting an open licence – if necessary, in consultation with the publisher or repository – creates the best conditions for the reuse of a scientific work.
Creative Commons Licences
Source: Brinken, H., Hauss, J., & Rücknagel, J. (2021). How exactly do Creative Commons licenses work? open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/53471 (CC BY 3.0 DE)
Source: Brinken, H., Hauss, J. & Rücknagel, J. (2021). The correct indication of a license: Aspects to consider when reusing the work of others. open-access.network. https://doi.org/10.5446/53550 (CC BY 3.0 DE)
References
- Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. (2003). https://openaccess.mpg.de/Berlin-Declaration
- Bertelsmann Stiftung. (2016). Freie Lizenzen – einfach erklärt. Ein Leitfaden für die Anwendung freier Lizenzen in der Bertelsmann Stiftung. https://www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de/de/publikationen/publikation/did/freie-lizenzen-einfach-erklaert
- Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002). https://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read/
- Dreier, T., Marignal Note 7 (2018). § 51 Zitate. In T. Dreier & G. Schulze, UrhG. Urheberrechtsgesetz (6th ed.). C. H. Beck.
- Hopf, D., Dellmann, S., Hauschke, C., & Tullney, M. (2022). Wirkungen von Open Access. Literaturstudie über empirische Arbeiten 2010-2021. Technische Informationsbibliothek (TIB). https://doi.org/10.34657/7666
- Suber, P. (2008, August). Gratis and libre open access. SPARC Open Access Newsletter. https://sparcopen.org/our-work/gratis-and-libre-open-access/
Furher Reading
- Charbonnier, J., Sohmen, L., Rothman, J., Rohden, B., & Wartena, C. (2018). NOA: A search engine for reusable scientific images beyond the life sciences. In G. Pasi, B. Piwowarski, L. Azzopardi, & A. Hanbury (Eds.). Advances in information retrieval: 40th European Conference on IR Research, ECIR 2018, Grenoble, France, March 26–29, 2018, proceedings (pp. 797–800). Springer. https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-76941-7
- Coates, J., Owen, V., & Reilly, Susan S. (Eds.) (2022). Navigating copyright for libraries: Purpose and scope., Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110732009
- Singson, L. (18 September 2025). Die eigene Publikation (nach-)nutzen – das gilt. iRights.info. https://doi.org/10.59350/pxhzc-a6508