
Access, Author Rights, and Agreements 2: HKU Author’s Choice of Creative Commons Licenses
— by Fanny Liu
Introduction
In the previous post (Access, Author Rights, and Agreements 1: Which Creative Commons License Works the Best for an Author?), we discussed the different Creative Commons licenses and publishers’ licensing agreements. In this post, we will focus on the choices made by HKU researchers.
Choice of HKU authors
In 2019-2023, among open access articles and conference proceedings published by HKU authorsi, 15315 were under one of the Creative Commons licenses (Public domain, CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA, or CC BY-NC-ND), alongside 413 under other licenses (e.g., Apache License 2.0, GNU GPLv3 MIT, or publisher specific open access license). As for works under Creative Commons licenses, the majority (67.29%) were under CC BY license, followed by CC BY-NC-ND (20.98%) and CC BY-NC (10.49%) licenses (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Creative Commons licenses of open access articles and conference proceedings by HKU authors in 2019-2023
Throughout 2019-2023, among different types of Creative Commons licenses, most HKU authors chose the CC BY license (see Figure 2). While in 2019-2022, there was a gradual increase of ratio of CC BY license, in 2023, a significant drop in the ratio of the CC BY license could be seen, alongside an increase in the CC BY-NC-ND license.
Figure 2: Creative Commons licenses of open access articles and conference proceedings by HKU authors in 2019-2023 by year
Publishers and Preferences
If we take a closer look at the distribution of licenses chosen by HKU authors when publishing with different publishersii in 2023, we can see obvious differences in license choice (see Figure 3). For example, when publishing with a few publishers, such as Springer Nature and Institute of Physics, authors almost always selected CC BY license, which ensured the maximised re-use and equal commercial use for all. While publishing with some other publishers, for example Elsevier and Wiley, significantly more authors selected a non-commercial (NC) license, including CC BY-NC, CC BY-NC-SA and CC BY-NC-ND licenses. This could be led by the different interfaces of license selection in author’s workflows (selecting a certain license by default).
Figure 3: Creative Commons license of HKU articles and conference proceedings in 2023 by publisher
Since 2023, HKU Libraries has entered a Transformative Agreement with Wiley, which enables HKU authors to publish open access with the charges covered. While the total number of open access itemsiii doubled in 2023, the ratio of items under CC BY license decreased; And the downward trend is expected to persist into 2024 (see figure 4).
Figure 4: Creative Commons licenses of open access articles and conference proceedings by HKU authors in 2019-2024 with Wiley
Similarly, HKU Libraries has entered a Transformative Agreement with Springer Nature (covering Springer hybrid journals only) in 2024. The number of open access items under Creative Commons licensesiv increased by 29% (see figure 5). While previously, the choice of CC BY licenses was consistently high, almost reaching 100%, in 2024, there was a significant increase in CC BY-NC-ND license from 1% to 15%.
Figure 5: Creative Commons licenses of open access articles and conference proceedings by HKU authors in 2019-2024 with Springer Nature
Would it be possible that the Transformative Agreements help to engage and enable new scholars to publish open access, who may not be familiar or may not completely agree with the ethos represented by the movement and select non-commercial licenses instead? This is a topic worthy of future exploration.
Agreement and Attention
As discussed in the previous post, while the terms in license agreements vary among publishers, in some cases, authors are required to grant exclusive commercial rights to the publishers. When the publishers hold the exclusive commercial rights, other users, even the authors themselves, are not allowed to re-use the works for commercial purposes. In contrast, the publishers, as the rights holders, can sell the research, for example to AI companies, without the need to further ask for authors’ consent or share any revenue with the authors.
Conclusion
While Creative Commons license selection can be new to some authors opting for open access, we encourage authors to think about the core values of open access, as well as various practical aspects, such as exclusive commercial rights to publishers, and maximising reach, re-use, and research impact.
[i] Works data were retrieved 11 November 2024, from OpenAlex (https://openalex.org/) with the following criteria:
- filtering criteria:
- institutions.ror:02zhqgq86
- primary_location.source.type:journal|conference
- primary_location.is_oa:true
- oa_status:gold|diamond|hybrid
- publication_year:2019|2020|2021|2022|2023|2024
- grouping criteria:
- primary_location.license
- publication_year
- primary_location.source.publisher_lineage
[ii] Publishers data were retrieved 11 November 2024 with the criteria: hierarchy_level:0
[iii] Works data were retrieved 11 November 2024, so 2024 data were incomplete. Works data were retrieved with the following additional filtering criteria:
- primary_location.source.publisher_lineage:P4310320595
[iv] Works data were retrieved 11 November 2024, so 2024 data were incomplete. Works data were retrieved with the following additional filtering criteria:
- primary_location.source.publisher_lineage: P4310319965
Disclaimer: The information and materials provided in this post are for general informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice.