Protection and management of copyright in open access

Abstract

This article aims at providing an organic view of state-of-the-art copyright in the light of open access and its implications in the research field. The open access movement was born within the scientific community about twenty years ago and a series of legislative measures have since transformed open science and open access from movements into concrete phenomena. It is a rapidly evolving matter – also in relation to the so-called ‘digital revolution’ – and therefore requires constant updating.

The introductory paragraphs (on copyright, publishing contracts and public domain) intend to provide a legislative framework. Subsequently, the article analyses Creative Commons licences, simple, intuitive and easily customisable tools that allow the holders of rights on the works to legally regulate the way in which the latter can be accessed and in fact help open access to become more widespread.

Next, the link between digital revolution, copyright and scientific research is taken into consideration, through the transposition of the new European directive EU 2019/790: the contradictions that characterise the policies for promoting openness in science are highlighted.

Finally, in order to offer an overview on the scarce diffusion of open access practices among Italian law publishers, the results of a survey are reported, conducted on the research products present in Iris Sapienza repository, limited to the disciplinary area 12 (Law science).

Faced with a sort of idiosyncrasy demonstrated by authors towards the legal aspects of OA and issues related to copyright, open access and measurement metrics, librarians can reaffirm their role as knowledge professionals supporting research, mastering the rules related to copyright and supporting authors during the increasingly widespread dissemination activities on open access.