Guest post by Catherine Sharp, Head of Open Access Services at UCL

Graphic from openaccessweek.org, photo by Greg Rakozy

“Who Owns Our Knowledge?”, the theme of this year’s International Open Access Week, asks how “communities can reassert control over the knowledge they produce”. With commercial publishers continuing to monetise academic content through ever-increasing subscription and open access fees – the costs of so-called “transformative” agreements to UK HEIs is around £140m – and to report substantial and growing profit margins, while at the same time attempting to restrict authors’ rights in their own work, this remains a challenge for all HEIs. Against this background, the UK’s rights retention movement is a vital tool in the effort to free academic research and empower authors to use and share their knowledge.

UCL’s Intellectual Property (IP) Policy has long enshrined the principle that UCL staff own the copyright in their own scholarly materials, and that UCL has the right to use them for academic and research purposes. This year, with the introduction of an updated Publications Policy, UCL has joined a number of other universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial and Manchester, in taking action to assert this right. This is known as rights retention.

In practical terms, this means that from 2026, having notified publishers of UCL’s pre-existing licence, UCL will make the accepted manuscripts of scholarly articles by UCL staff open access without an embargo in UCL Discovery, UCL’s open access repository, under the Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY) (unless an alternative licence or exemption is requested). The CC BY licence allows widespread re-use and sharing, and is the licence that research funders, including Wellcome, UKRI, NIHR and EC funders, require.

Photo by Mary Hinckley, UCL Digital Media, ISD-LTMS

While UCL will continue to provide opportunities for authors to publish Gold open access through transformative agreements and in fully open access journals, articles that are not Gold open access will also benefit from immediate open access, on publication, in UCL Discovery. This will allow all UCL authors to meet their funders’ (including REF) open access requirements while continuing to publish in their journals of choice, and to benefit from open access through higher impact, increased citations and more collaborations.

Photo by Mary Hinkley, UCL Digital Media

The policy also benefits co-authors, and UCL authors are encouraged to let their co-authors know about it and to take advantage of it. Aside from that, authors do not need to take any action other than to upload their accepted manuscripts to RPS, on publication.

We are looking forward to seeing the practical effects of the policy as more UCL research is made available, more freely, than ever before.

The UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship invites you to contribute to the open science and scholarship movement. Stay connected for updates, events, and opportunities.

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Guest post by Christine Daoutis, Copyright Support Officer at UCL

Graphic from openaccessweek.org, photo by Greg Rakozy

The theme of this year’s International Open Access Week is a question – and a call for collaboration. By addressing ‘who owns our knowledge’, it invites diverse communities to recognise and challenge existing assumptions about how scholarship is created, disseminated and built upon; to recognise power dynamics that shape these assumptions; and to make decisions that best serve the interests of the public and the academic community.

Understanding how copyright frames these assumptions, power dynamics and decisions is essential. In the strictest sense, who ‘owns’ scholarship (perceived as the IP rights in the outcomes of research – publications, research data and any other outputs created in the life of a research project) is, after all, defined by legislation and by the terms of publishing agreements and other contracts. In a broader sense, ‘owning’ can determine the ‘what’, the ‘how’ and the ‘who’ of scholarship in the first place: what is selected to be funded and published? How will the outcomes be disseminated? And crucially, who is able (or not able) to access, understand, benefit from and possibly build on the outcomes of a work? While many of these questions depend on IP rights, other factors (including criteria of research quality and impact, academic freedom, linguistic and cultural barriers to access) also influence how we address them.

Image from www.freepik.com

Keeping close to this year’s theme, this post will focus on three key approaches related to copyright which should help adopt practices that support open scholarship.

1. Understanding authorship and copyright ownership
   To make a work as open as possible, it is first necessary to establish who the rights owner is, as it is the rights owner who has control over reproducing and disseminating the work. It is natural to assume that the author(s) of a work should be its owner(s). However, this is determined by copyright laws and by contract. In the UK, the first owner of a work is its author. However, if the work was created in the course of employment, the employer is the owner unless there is an agreement that says otherwise (CDPA 11). Understanding – and where necessary, negotiating – ownership empowers authors to make their research widely available and reusable. This involves reading and understanding institutional IP policies and the terms of grant agreements, publisher agreements and collaboration/co-production agreements. In terms of publishing, rights retention policies (covered in another post this week) ensure that authors and their institutions keep key rights enabling them to make their research articles immediately available under the terms of an open licence.
2. Addressing authorship and ownership in collaborations
   Moral rights – which include the right to be attributed as the author of a work – are just as important as economic rights when addressing copyright. Deciding who is co-author in a work and in what order they should be credited is essential. Further, contributions to a research project that may or may not also involve direct authorship of a publication should also be established and acknowledged. This includes acknowledging contributions by research participants, citizen science participants and anyone who has played an advisory or supporting role in the research by applying standards such as the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CrediT).
3. Understanding and using open licences
   Open licences, including Creative Commons licences and open source licences, support the dissemination and reuse of a wide range of works. While research funders have requirements around the use of licences (for example, the CC BY licence for research publications) researchers can also apply licences to a broader range materials (educational resources, images, preprints, datasets). Particularly in the age of AI, understanding how licences such as Creative Commons work is important, both for authors and users of scholarly works. Creative Commons are also introducing ‘preference signals’ to support transparency and reciprocity in how scholarly works are used by AI.

Further Support

The UCL copyright service helps you navigate these issues through training, discussion and opportunities to follow and participate in current debates. To engage with copyright at UCL:

• Join one of our sessions, which include addressing copyright in publishing agreements and discussing copyright and open access issues via our Copyright for Humans game.
• Join our UCL Copyright Community Teams channel for discussions, events and opportunities to share and develop your copyright knowledge.
• Contact copyright@ucl.ac.uk for support.

The UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship invites you to contribute to the open science and scholarship movement. Stay connected for updates, events, and opportunities.

Follow us on Bluesky, LinkedIn, and join our mailing list to be part of the conversation!

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This is the last article of our Copyright and Open Science series by Christine Daoutis, UCL Copyright Support Officer, which explored important aspects of copyright and its implications for open research and scholarship.

Image caption. Jonathasmello, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

In this post, we conclude our Copyright and Open Science series by focusing on open education. Broadly defined, open education is “a philosophy about how people should produce, share, and build on knowledge” (source: What is open education? Opensource.com). It refers to values, practices and resources that aim to make scholarship more accessible, equitable, sustainable, transparent and collaborative.

The UNESCO definition of OERs highlights the importance of freely accessible educational materials in advancing open education practices globally. This includes the creation and reuse of OERs—materials that are either out of copyright or licensed to allow reuse. However, open education extends beyond resources to include practices such as integrating open science into teaching, sharing educational practices, and co-creating resources with learners.

OERs include a wide range of materials, such as open textbooks, open access articles, lecture handouts, images, film, slides, lecture recordings, assessment resources, software and whole courses such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCS). By default, all these resources are protected by copyright. If you’re planning to create open educational resources, here’s some copyright advice.

Addressing copyright in OERs

1. Know who owns what. If you are creating or collaborating on a teaching resource, it is essential to clarify who holds the copyright. This could be you, the author; your employer, if the work was created in the course of employment; or the resource could be co-owned with others, including students or sponsors. To license a resource for reuse (for example, to make it available under a Creative Commons licence), you must own the copyright to the resource and/or agree such licensing with co-owners. ♦ Copyright ownership at UCL is addressed in the UCL IP Policy.

2. Make the resources openly available and reusable. Once you are certain that the resource is yours to license, consider making it openly available, under a licence that allows reuse. Open access repositories support the discovery and access of different types of materials, including OERs. UCL has a dedicated OER repository, which accepts materials created by its staff and students.

As for licensing: we have explained in a previous post how Creative Commons licences work; and you can read more on how CC licences support OERs on the Creative Commons wiki. Licensing under the most permissive of the licences, the Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY), supports the ‘five Rs’ of OERs: enabling others to “retain, revise, remix, reuse and redistribute the materials”. (David Wiley, Defining the “Open” in Open Content and Open Educational Resources, Improving Learning blog).

Image caption: sOER Frank, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

3. Address any third-party materials. If the resource contains materials you don’t own the copyright to (such as third-party content), you have a few options:

• Reuse works that are out of copyright (public domain) or openly licensed. These might include Creative Commons images and videos, open access articles, and OERs created by others. ♦ See UCL’s guidance on finding OERs and a reading list with links to many openly licensed resources.
• Get permission from the copyright owner. If the material is not openly licensed, you might consider seeking permission to reuse it. Be clear about how the resource containing the material will be shared (i.e., as an OER). Third-party materials included in an OER should be shared under their own copyright terms (e.g., their reuse may be more restricted than the rest of the resource) and this should be communicated when sharing.
• Rely on a copyright exception. In some cases, instead of getting permission you may decide to rely on a copyright exception, notably the quotation exception in UK copyright law. Using exceptions requires judgement. You’ll need to determine whether the use of the material is ‘fair dealing’: does the purpose justify the use? Does it affect the copyright owner’s market? Overall, is it “fair” to all parties involved? Be aware that copyright exceptions vary by country, which is important when making a resource globally available. The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Open Educational Resources explores these approaches further, putting forward a framework that could be applied internationally.

Putting the copyright advice to practice: examples from UCL’s copyright online tutorials.

Screenshot from UCL’s Copyright Essentials tutorial, which includes a photo by Michael Neel from Knoxville, TN, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

While creating UCL’s Copyright Essentials and Copyright and your Teaching, two online tutorials introducing copyright, the UCL Copyright support team drew on its own advice. Specifically:

• Copyright ownership and attribution were addressed. Copyright Essentials is an adaptation of an original resource, which was also openly licensed. Attribution to all original authors was included.
• Both tutorials are publicly available online, allowing anyone to access and complete them. They are also licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution licence, permitting others to adapt and redistribute the materials with appropriate attribution.
• Third-party materials mostly included openly licensed images and links to lawfully shared videos and documents. However, for some materials, we opted to rely on copyright exceptions, which involved a degree of interpretation and risk. This was highlighted in the tutorials, inviting learners to reflect on the use of exceptions.

It should be noted that using proprietary e-learning tools (like Articulate Rise) to develop the tutorials restricts reuse. While the shared resources can be accessed, they cannot be downloaded or edited. Authors wishing to adapt the resources have the option to recreate the materials under the licence terms or contact us for an editable copy. Ideally, these resources should be created with open-source tools, but there’s a trade-off between the advantages of user-friendly, accessible proprietary tools and these limitations.

For more advice on copyright and OERs please contact copyright@ucl.ac.uk.

Read more from the Copyright and Open Science Series:

• Developing a Copyright Literacy Community at UCL (UCL Copyright blog, 29 April 2024): An introduction to building a community around copyright literacy at UCL.
• Copyright Literacy Matters: Developing a Copyright Literacy Strategy at UCL (UCL Copyright blog, 14 October 2024): A deep dive into UCL’s strategy for copyright literacy across the institution.
• Keeping it Fair and Honest: How Copyright Exceptions Can Support Your Thesis, Publications, and Teaching (UCL Copyright blog, 22 February 2024): This post explores copyright exceptions, with practical examples for researchers and educators.
• Copyright and Open Science in the Age of AI: What Can We All Do to Ensure Free and Open Access to Knowledge for All? (Open@UCL blog, 24 October 2024): A discussion on the intersection of copyright, open science, and AI, focusing on access and equity.
• Copyright and AI Part 1: How Does Copyright Apply to AI-Generated Works? (Open@UCL blog, 21 June 2024): An exploration of the implications of AI in copyright law, particularly concerning AI-generated works.
• Copyright and AI Part 2: Perceived Challenges, Suggested Approaches, and the Role of Copyright Literacy (Open@UCL blog, 15 August 2024): A follow-up on the challenges AI presents to copyright, along with potential solutions and the role of copyright literacy in addressing these challenges.
• Text and Data Mining (TDM) and Your Research: Copyright Implications and New Website Guidance (Open@UCL blog, 13 May 2024): Insights into how copyright affects text and data mining (TDM) in research, including new guidance.
• How Understanding Copyright Can Help You as a Researcher (Open@UCL blog, 4 April 2024): A beginner’s guide to understanding copyright and its importance for academic research.

Guest post by Christine Daoutis, UCL Copyright Support Officer. 

This the third blog post of the collaborative series between the UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship and the UCL Copyright team. Here, we continue our exploration of important aspects of copyright and its implications for open research and scholarship.

Photo by Google DeepMind.

In a previous post we introduced questions that arise when using and creating materials protected by copyright. What options are available to you if you want to reuse others’ work (e.g. articles, theses, images, film, code) in your research? And what do you need to consider before you share your own research with others? Issues around copyright protection, permissions, exceptions, licences, and ownership need to be examined when creating new works and including others’ materials. These questions are also relevant when we think about works that are created with the use of GenAI tools, such as ChatGPT. However, with the use of these technologies still being relatively new and the legal aspects being shaped as we speak, answers are not always straightforward.

GenAI Training Data: GenAI models are trained on a large number of materials, usually protected by copyright (unless copyright has expired or been waived). Does this mean AI companies are infringing copyright by using these materials? How would copyright exceptions and fair dealing/fair use apply in different countries? How would licence terms – including the terms of open licences – be respected? Answers will come both from legislation and codes of practice introduced by governments and regulatory bodies (such as the EU AI Act) and from the outcomes of court cases (see, for example, Getty Images vs Stability AI, the Authors’ Guild against OpenAI and Microsoft.

User Prompts: The prompts a user provides to the model (instructions, text, images) may also be protected. You should also consider whether the prompts you enter include any confidential/commercially sensitive information that should not be shared. Please see UCL’s IP policy for guidance on this.

Image Credit: Kris Kashtanova using Midjourney AI, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

AI-Generated Work: Is the AI-generated work an original work protected by copyright? Is it a derivative of other original works, and therefore, possibly infringing? If it is protected, who owns the copyright? The answer to this will vary by case and jurisdiction. In the US, a court ruled that AI-generated images in a comic book were not protected, although the whole comic book and story were. In China, it was ruled that images generated with the use of GenAI tools would be protected, with the owner being the person who provided the prompts. The UK’s CDPA (9.3) states that ‘in the case of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work which is computer-generated, the author shall be taken to be the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work are undertaken’.

In short, GenAI raises questions about what constitutes an original work, what constitutes infringement, how copyright exceptions and fair dealing/fair use are applied, and how authorship is established. While these questions are still being shaped, here are three things you can do:

1. Consider any limitations in using GenAI besides copyright (e.g., confidentiality, biases, publishers’ policies). See UCL’s Generative AI hub for guidance.
2. Be transparent about how you use GenAI. See UCL Library guidance on acknowledging the use of AI and referencing AI.
3. If you have any copyright-related questions on the use of GenAI, contact the copyright support service.

 While GenAI has opened up more questions than answers around copyright, it also offers an opportunity to think about copyright critically. Stay connected with us for Part 2 of this blog post, which will discuss how new technologies, including GenAI, are changing our understanding of copyright. We look forward to continuing this important conversation with you.

Get involved!

The UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship invites you to contribute to the open science and scholarship movement. Stay connected for updates, events, and opportunities. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, LinkedIn, and join our mailing list to be part of the conversation!

This the second blog post of our collaborative series between the UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship and the UCL Copyright team. Here, we continue our exploration of important aspects of copyright and its implications for open research and scholarship. In this instalment, we examine Text and Data Mining (TDM) and its impact on research along with the associated copyright considerations.

Image by storyset on Freepik.

The development of advanced computational tools and techniques for analysing large amounts of data has opened up new possibilities for researchers. Text and Data Mining (TDM) is a broad term referring to a range of ‘automated analytical techniques to analyse text and data for patterns, trends, and useful information’ (Intellectual Property Office definition). TDM has many applications in academic research across disciplines (Intellectual Property Office definition). TDM has many applications in academic research across disciplines.

In an academic context, the most common sources of data for TDM include journal articles, books, datasets, images, and websites. TDM involves accessing, analysing, and often reusing (parts of) these materials. As these materials are, by default, protected by copyright, there are limitations around what you can do as part of TDM. In the UK, you may rely on section 29A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, a copyright exception for making copies for text and data analysis for non-commercial research. You must have lawful access to the materials (for example via a UCL subscription or via an open license). However, there are often technological barriers imposed by publishers preventing you from copying large amounts of materials for TDM purposes – measures that you must not try to circumvent. Understanding what you can do with copyright materials, what may be more problematic and where to get support if in doubt, should help you manage these barriers when you use TDM in your research.

The copyright support team works with e-resources, the Library Skills librarians, and the Office for Open Science and Scholarship to support the TDM activities of UCL staff and students. New guidance is available on the copyright website. TDM libguide and addresses questions that often arise during TDM, including:

• Can you copy journal articles, books, images, and other materials? What conditions apply?
• What do you need to consider when sharing the outcomes of a TDM analysis?
• What do publishers and other suppliers of the TDM sources expect you to do?

To learn more about copyright (including how it applies to TDM):

• Visit the new TDM guidance.
• Register for one of our copyright sessions.
• Contact the copyright team if you have specific questions or would like to organise a session for your department.
• The new UCL Copyright Literacy Community aims to bring together staff and students from across UCL to identify and collaborate on areas where an understanding of copyright should be strengthened. If you are interested in joining, please contact the copyright team.

Get involved!

The UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship invites you to contribute to the open science and scholarship movement. Stay connected for updates, events, and opportunities. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, LinkedIn, and join our mailing list to be part of the conversation!