Some freely accessible content will also be free of a copyright payment obligation, while some content is only free for specific uses and will still require the collection of a copyright fee for commercial purposes. The differentiation is evidenced by the license terms associated with the article.
Open Access articles are identified as content that has a Creative Commons license or some other form of an Open Access statement that allows us to verify with the publisher that the content is formally identified as Open Access. These articles are often accompanied by an orange “open padlock” symbol to identify an article as Open Access. However, this symbol is not always applied consistently.
If Price Estimates are enabled on your account’s order form, our automated process will pre-check your citation to determine if it qualifies as Open Access. If our database is able to verify an Open Access designation, the item will be identified as Open Access, and a link may be provided to access your article directly from the hosting website at no charge.
Many accounts will also have a manual step in place where we will check all orders at the time of delivery to determine if they are Open Access and adjust prices down to zero if the article can be verified as Open Access.
Open Access can have terms contingent on the type of license granted. For example, some content is free of copyright for any use, and some have restrictions where the article is only Open Access for Non-Commercial use cases. Accordingly, an order’s Intended Use may impact whether Open Access applies. More information about these licenses can be read at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.
Content that may be free to access but does not have clearly defined license terms, a Creative Commons license, or is otherwise not consistent with Open Access policies, may incur a copyright fee. This type of content is sometimes referred to as “Free to Read” or sometimes called Bronze OA. Depending on the publication’s terms and conditions, we may charge a royalty or service fee for this content. Reasons why a freely accessible PDF may not be Open Access include the following:
- The free version is not the Version of Record (ex: an author manuscript)
- The customer’s use is commercial and the content has a non-commercial OA license (CC-BY-NC or CC-BY-NY-ND)
- The content has temporary unrestricted access, but it is not Open Access; this is often deployed by publishers for promotional purposes for a limited time
- The freely available content is not in a print-formatted PDF. For example, articles that are freely accessible in html format may require a royalty payment in order to deliver the paginated print-formatted version.
Article Galaxy helps our users navigate this tricky terrain. We regularly communicate with publishers and Open Access advocates to ensure compliance with Open Access and Free to Read content. We use multiple data sources and a variety of account settings and workflows to help users strike the right balance between the following complex requirements:
- Optimizing access to free content
- Ensuring users obtain the most recent version of their citation
- Complying with license terms set forth by the publisher and authors
We communicate directly with publishers to identify Open Access journals and work with a variety of databases to correctly apply Open Access rules to facilitate the free transfer of information within the terms set forth by the publisher and authors. These terms can be complicated and may change over time as publisher polices evolve, so please reach out to us at customersupport@reprintsdesk.com if you have any questions regarding a specific article or content piece