Copyright, Licensing and Access Policy
Principles
Agroecology Eprints (AEPrints) supports the widest possible dissemination and reuse of agroecology research outputs while respecting copyright, licensing, publisher policies, and legal requirements.Authors and rights holders are encouraged to make their work openly available whenever possible.
Copyright and Rights Retention
Authors generally retain copyright in their work unless they have transferred rights to a publisher or granted an exclusive publishing licence.Before depositing material in AEPrints, contributors are responsible for ensuring that they have the necessary rights and permissions to make the material available through the repository.
The responsibility for determining whether a publication may be deposited, and under what conditions, rests with the depositor.
Self-Archiving
Many publishers permit authors to deposit versions of their publications in institutional or subject repositories.Depending on publisher policies, the version that may be deposited can include:
- a preprint (the version submitted before peer review);
- an Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) or postprint (the version accepted after peer review but before publisher formatting and copy-editing); or
- the final published Version of Record.
Authors should ensure that deposited materials comply with these requirements.
Where full-text deposit is not permitted, authors are encouraged to deposit bibliographic information and provide a link to the published version.
Licensing and Creative Commons
AEPrints supports the use of Creative Commons (CC) licences to clarify reuse rights and facilitate the sharing of research outputs.Where contributors hold the necessary rights, they are encouraged to apply an appropriate Creative Commons licence to deposited materials.
Common licences include:
- CC BY (Attribution) - permits sharing and adaptation with attribution;
- CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike) - requires derivative works to be shared under the same licence;
- CC BY-NC (Attribution-NonCommercial) - restricts commercial reuse;
- CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike) - combines non-commercial and share-alike requirements; and
- CC0 (Public Domain Dedication) - waives rights to the extent permitted by law.
Where no licence is specified, copyright remains with the rights holder and reuse is governed by applicable copyright law.
Where deposited materials result from publicly funded research, contributors are encouraged to select licences that support the principles of Open Science and comply with applicable funder requirements. In particular, Horizon Europe encourages the use of CC BY licences for publications and CC0 or equivalent licences for metadata and, where appropriate, research data.
Open and Restricted Access
AEPrints aims to maximise access to research outputs while respecting copyright and legal obligations.Depending on the rights associated with a deposited item, access may be:
- openly available to all users;
- restricted to registered AEPrints users; or
- restricted to the depositor and authorised repository administrators and editors.
Responsibilities of Depositors
Contributors depositing material in AEPrints are responsible for:- ensuring that they have the necessary rights and permissions to deposit the material;
- complying with publisher, institutional, and funder requirements;
- selecting an appropriate licence and access level;
- ensuring that deposited content does not infringe copyright or other intellectual property rights; and
- providing accurate metadata describing the deposited item.
Responsibilities of Users
Users of AEPrints are responsible for respecting the copyright, licence terms, and access conditions associated with deposited materials.Materials may be downloaded, stored, printed, cited, and reused only in accordance with the licence terms specified for the item or with applicable copyright law.
Users are encouraged to cite and link to the repository record rather than redistributing deposited files.