Open access laid down in Dutch copyright act - UM Library - Maastricht University

"On 1 July 2015 the new Dutch copyright act (Wet Auteurscontractenrecht, Staatsblad 2015, 257; in Dutch only) became effective. Section 25 fa has been inserted to state that authors are legally entitled to make the results of their research open access available. The new legislation is important for all scholarly authors employed by Dutch universities. The essence of section 25 fa lies in the fact that academic articles, completely or partly paid out of public funds, may only be published open access by the author after a reasonable period of time.  Due to the new Dutch copyright act, university staff members no longer have to agree with publishers on open access rights. Staff members only have to reach an agreement on the length of ‘a reasonable period of time’. For questions on this matter, please contact our copyright information specialists ..."