The UK PubMed Central Publishers Panel has agreed on a set of principles in relation to the re-use of documents for which an open access (OA) fee has been paid. The panel comprises research funders and STM and scholarly publisher trade associations.
The agreement recognises that it is in the interests of fostering and promoting research that OA articles may be freely copied and used for text and data mining purposes, provided certain norms are met. The norms stipulate that the uses are fully attributed, undertaken on a non-commercial basis, and do not interfere with any moral rights of the author(s) of the articles. In addition to making such papers freely accessible to users worldwide at the time of publication, other re-use of the content such as further redistribution, adaptation and translation is encouraged under licence from individual rights-holders. A number of publishers already provide an OA option in accord with the principles agreed here including Springer, OUP and Elsevier.
The Statement of Principle also stresses the value publishers add to the research process, and encourages funding bodies to establish clear funding mechanisms to ensure that these legitimate research costs can be met.
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