Creative Commons

Sidestone Press has always been in favour of free access and free sharing of scientific knowledge and data. We already started with offering free access to our books from the moment Sidestone was founded in 2007. Since then, Open Access has become more and more the norm, a development that we greatly encourage. This has given rise to more and more platforms, repositories and other Open Access systems.

These systems require that the legal conditions of sharing content are formalized, so that everyone knows exactly what they can and cannot do. Going forward we will propose to our authors that by default all our books are published with a Creative Commons (CC) license. Although we would recommend the most open license where everyone is free to share, use, adapt (CC BY), we will encourage that our books are published at least with a CC BY-NC-ND.

What does this mean?

If we break down this lettering code, it means that people are free to use and share our PDFs (CC), provided they attribute their makers (BY). With the most open license (CC BY) people do not have to ask for permission if they want to re-use or adapt any of your content (but they do always have to credit the original maker).

If you are not comfortable with this, we would recommend the CC BY NC-ND. This “NC-ND” addition means that under this license users are still free to download and share the PDF, but the content can only be used for Non-Commercial purposes and No Derivates can be made (without your permission).

The benefit of either of these licenses is that readers know what they are allowed to do with our PDFs. Either of these licenses for example mean that people are allowed to download a PDF and share it with colleagues or students. It also means that university libraries are free to include PDFs of our books (or offprints of individual papers) in their online repositories.

If someone wants to re-use an image, they would be free to do so if the book has a CC BY license (without the need to ask for permission), but with a CC BY-NC-ND license they would need to ask for formal permission from the copyright holder. In all cases the original maker must always be credited. To learn more about Creative Commons and the available licenses, please visit: https://creativecommons.org/.

Do I lose my Copyright with a CC?

This is a common misconception, and the answer is no. The author will still have the copyright to their work. The CC license only provides the legal “rules” under which your work can be used by others. The license simply states upfront what a user is allowed to do, or not to do. But note, once a license is given, it cannot be revoked.

If someone wants to do something that is not covered under the licence, they will still have to ask for permission from the copyright holder. With Sidestone the copyrights always remain with the authors.

What about rights of third parties?

Most books contain content, for example images, from third parties (not made by the author). This can, for example, be an image from a museum, or from another publication, that is used with permission. These images will not be covered under the CC license. In the colophon of the book we will clearly state that the CC license only applies to the original content that was created by the author. So if you credit something to another source (a quote or an image), it will be automatically excluded from the CC license.

Examples of colophon statements

Depending on the type of license you select, the colophon of your book will look something like this:

© 2024 Jane Doe
This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). This license does not apply to content that is attributed to sources other than the copyright holder mentioned above. Under this license you are free to share and adapt this work, provided the makers are attributed. For more information about our licenses, please visit https://www.sidestone.com/publishing/creative-commons

Or in case of a more restricted license:

© 2024 John Smith
This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). This license does not apply to content that is attributed to sources other than the copyright holder mentioned above. Under this license you are free to share this work, provided the makers are attributed. Its content cannot be used for commercial purposes nor is it allowed to make adaptations without permission from the copyright holder. For more information about our licenses, please visit https://www.sidestone.com/publishing/creative-commons