Copyright Law’s Role in Advocacy and Education for Open Access Policies on Campus

"Over the past decade, colleges and universities have been adopting institutional open access (OA) policies that encourage, direct, or give rights to authors to make their research publicly available in institutional repositories (IRs). These networked databases are often created to serve these OA policies, distributing an author’s research to a global online audience. Without copyright law, these policies and the supporting IRs could not exist: copyright law is the engine of a successful OA policy and thereby a successful IR. In particular, US copyright law features a statute that allows creators to transfer rights for a work without actually giving up total control of it. These non-exclusive rights are the foundation of the OA movement in the US.

This chapter begins with a brief introduction to the benefits and management of OA policies, focusing on their basis in copyright law and author rights. It continues with an examination of the ongoing disagreements among OA practitioners and publishers about what OA actually means and how the term “open access” can pose communication and workflow challenges for those working with institutional OA policies. Within this context, the authors describe common OA policy workflows and the activities librarians undertake to determine what version of an article can be deposited in an IR as well as how to communicate these nuances to campus stakeholders. It concludes with advice on how an IR can be used to advocate for author rights and comply with copyright law."