How to Choose the Right License for my Article?

We know that writing a research paper is difficult, but it is even more when you are missing some vital information about it by the time you have to upload or share it. So, for the license part of the work, we got you covered.

Find everything you need to know about licenses and how to choose the best for you in this post.

All About Licenses

First, let's talk about Creative Commons. This nonprofit organization provides Creative Commons licenses to every person or organization to grant copyright permissions for scholarly and creative works.

These licenses might allow others to copy, distribute and use those works, ensuring the proper attribution to the author. The Licenses are open and easy to understand as every one of them answers the question ''What can I do with this work?''

Types of CC licenses available

There are six types of licenses that you can choose for your work in order of how much you want to protect your work. So, here they are:

• CC BY: The one present in every license, by using this one you allow anyone to share, remix or adapt your work always with the condition to give the proper attribution to the author. Also allows commercial use.
• CC BY-SA: This license shares the terms of the CC-BY one but also says that if someone builds upon the material, remixes, or adapts, the work must be under identical terms.
• CC BY-NC: This license has every aspect of the CC-BY one, but it doesn't allow commercial use, and attribution to the author must always be given.
• CC BY-NS-SA: This license gives permission to build, adapt, remix or use the material given the author the proper attribution, with noncommercial uses and only under identical terms if you remix, adapt, or build on the material.
• CC BY-ND: This license authorizes to share and copying of the material, allows commercial use, and of course, attribution to the author must be given, but derivatives or adaptations are not allowed.
• CC BY-NC-ND: This one is exactly like the CC BY-ND one, but it doesn't allow commercial use. So, no adaptations and noncommercial. Attribution to the author and sharing and copying of the material is permitted.
• CC0 (CC zero): This is a non conditions tool. This one allows creators to resign their copyright and give their work for public use, with no conditions.

You can read more and check every kind of detail about licenses here.

How to Choose and Use a License?

Before choosing a license for your work, you have to make sure you read and understand all of them, in order to be sure when you pick one. You might think about how you want your work to be shared and use, and why you want it that way.

Some important things to know before choosing a license are:

• Licenses or CC zero can't be revoked.
• You have to control or own the copyright of your work. Also, know that if the work was made in your job, it may not belong to you.
• Make sure to specify exactly what are you licensing.
• The license terminates automatically when the terms of the license are not fulfilled.

For some more important considerations before choosing a license, you can read this link. You also have available a License Chooser that it's really useful to better understand the one you will be using for your work.

Once you have already decided which one you will be using, simply add the rich text they provide to the button of your work.

Orvium and Licenses

As you may know, Orvium is an Open Acces Platform, so this means that every publication uploaded to our platform needs to be available for anyone who needs it.

If you are the owner or editor of a community, you can define the available licenses in your community, so authors can choose between your selection. Simply edit your community settings and mark the ones you want.

Otherwise, if you are an author and you want to upload a new publication into a community, you can choose a license from the ones available in the community you want to publish your work.

We hope this post was helpful to you, and if you liked it we recommend you read the next one: ''ORCID: Learn Everything About It''. Also, you can tell us in the comment section what you think about the post or what would you like us to talk about in the next one.

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