Open Access publishing is a process that requires to apply the proper kind of license to make that publication “legally” open. It would be appropriate for authors to retain the copyright on the accepted manuscript. Creative Commons licenses are the most widely used ones and the option that is the most adhering to the open access principles is CC-BY. Other options are viable taking into account four main elements: Credit (BY), Non-commercial uses (NC), No derivative works (ND), Adaptations under the same terms (SA).
If your work is published as open access by a journal/publisher
When you are publishing Open Access, journal/publisher must correctly inform you about what kind of license will be applied. In most cases, a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) will be the selected option. In other cases, you will be asked to choose among other types of Creative Commons licenses (with different fees).
THE KIND OF LICENSE USED BY THE publisher MUST BE CLEARLY STATED ON THE WEBSITE (IN both THE INFORMATION/GUIDELINES FOR THE AUTHORS AND THE OPEN ACCESS SECTIONS).
the kind of license should be explicitly mentioned during the PAPER PUBLICATION PROCESS, preferAbly at the very beginning or in any case once the manuscript is accepted, before payment
useful links
about cREATIVE COMMONS licences
If your work is published in traditional fashion (non-open access) by a journal/publisher
When you are publishing non-open access, copyright is usually assigned exclusively to the publisher through a default copyright transfer agreement (or license to publish) that is commonly drafted by the publisher itself.
N.B.: the assignment of the entire copyright to the publisher limits access to the publication to you and to third parties as well, even to the Accepted Manuscript (AAM). This may not be compatible with what is required by many funders, as they usually require the availability of – at least – an open access Accepted Manuscript.
It would be appropriate to maintain your copyright at least on the Accepted Manuscript (Rights Retention Strategy). In order to do that, you must include the following statement in the acknowledgements section: “A CC BY licence is applied to the Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) arising from this submission”.
IF YOUR PUBLICATION IS THE RESULT OF A RESEARCH PROJECT FUNDED BY AN ENTITY REQUIRING IT TO BE immediately provided in open access mode, YOU CAN SPECIFY IN THE acknowledgements SECTION THAT: “This research was funded in whole or in part by the “NAME OF THE FUNDER” [Grant number]. For the purpose of Open Access, the author has applied a CC BY licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) version arising from this submission.”
USEFUL LINKS
Plan S Rights Retention Strategy