CONTENTS

1. Scope and applicability
2. Definitions
3. Copyright ownership
4. License to publish
5. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
6. Scope of the CC BY 4.0 license by content type
7. Rights by manuscript version
8. Third-party and pre-existing materials
9. Author warranties and representations
10. Text and data mining
11. Artificial intelligence and machine learning
12. Moral rights
13. License display and machine-readable metadata
14. Backfile content and transitional provisions
15. Government and funder use licenses
16. License implications of post-publication modifications
17. Rights retained by authors
18. Rights of readers and third parties
19. Future changes to the licensing model
20. Governing law and enforcement
21. International normative references

 

 1. SCOPE AND APPLICABILITY

This Copyright and Licensing Policy governs the copyright, licensing and rights arrangements applicable to all content published in European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO). It applies to all submissions received and all articles published on or after the date of adoption of this Policy.

This Policy is to be read in conjunction with the Journal's Open Access Policy, Preprint Policy, Data Availability and Sharing Policy and Artificial Intelligence Policy. In the event of any conflict between this Policy and another Journal policy, this Policy prevails on matters of copyright and licensing.

2. DEFINITIONS

For this Policy, the following definitions apply:

Author. Any natural person who has made a qualifying intellectual contribution to the content of the article as defined in the Journal's Authorship Policy.

Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM). The version of the article that has been accepted for publication by the Journal and incorporates all peer-reviewed revisions, but has not yet undergone copyediting, typesetting or proofing by the Publisher.

CC BY 4.0. The Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, the full text of which is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

Copyright. The exclusive legal right of the author(s) to control the reproduction, distribution, adaptation and public communication of their original work, as recognized under the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works and applicable national legislation.

Diamond Open Access. A publishing model in which content is freely available to all readers and no charges are levied on authors, their institutions or funders either for publication or for access.

License to Publish. The non-exclusive, irrevocable right granted by authors to the Publisher to publish, reproduce, distribute, publicly display and make available the article in any medium and format.

Moral Rights. The right of authors to attribution (the right to be identified as the author of a work) and integrity (the right to object to modifications that are prejudicial to the author's honor or reputation), as recognized under Article 6bis of the Berne Convention and applicable national legislation.

Publisher. Edikta S.r.l., Via della Balduina 311, 00136 Roma, Italy, acting on behalf of the European Society of Gynecology (ESG), CHE-253.393.638, Locarno, Switzerland.

Submitted Manuscript (SM). The version of the article as submitted to the Journal before peer review.

Third-Party Material. Any content included in an article that is owned by a party other than the authors, including but not limited to figures, tables, photographs, scales, questionnaires, software code and text reproduced or adapted from other published works.

Version of Record (VoR). The final, published version of the article as it appears on the Journal's platform following copyediting, typesetting, proofing and online publication.

3. COPYRIGHT OWNERSHIP

Authors retain full copyright in their published works. No copyright transfer is required or accepted as a condition of publication. Where an article has been produced in the scope of employment and applicable national law deems the employer to be the copyright holder, the corresponding author must ensure that the employer has authorized the submission and is aware of the licensing terms set out in this Policy.

Where government employees publish articles in a jurisdiction in which works produced by government officials in the scope of their duties are not protected by copyright (such as works produced by United States federal government employees under 17 U.S.C. § 105), the article shall be licensed under CC BY 4.0 to the extent that copyright protection applies, and the authors must disclose the public domain status of the relevant elements of the work at submission.

Where an article, or any element of an article, is subject to Crown Copyright or an equivalent government copyright regime, the corresponding author must disclose this status at submission. Where required by applicable funder or governmental rules, an Open Government License (OGL) or equivalent government open license may be applied to the relevant elements, provided that: (a) the OGL or equivalent notice is clearly indicated in the article metadata, the copyright statement and any caption or footnote associated with the relevant element; and (b) the remainder of the article is published under CC BY 4.0 in the ordinary manner. This provision is particularly relevant for articles authored wholly or in part by employees of UK public bodies funded through UKRI.

4. LICENSE TO PUBLISH

Upon acceptance of an article for publication, the corresponding author, acting on behalf of all authors, grants to the Publisher a non-exclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free license to:

(a)  publish the article in the Journal in all formats, including but not limited to print, electronic, HTML, PDF and XML;

(b)  reproduce, distribute and publicly display the article;

(c)  sublicense the article to third parties, including repositories, aggregators, indexing services and preservation networks, to the extent necessary for fulfillment of the Journal's open access obligations;

(d)  deposit the article in repositories required or recommended by funders, indexers or preservation services, including but not limited to PubMed Central, Europe PMC, OpenAIRE and the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN);

(e)  make the article available under the CC BY 4.0 license to all readers and third parties.

This license does not restrict the authors' own rights to use, reproduce, distribute and adapt their article.

No copyright transfer is required. Any document presented to authors that purports to require copyright transfer to the Publisher or to the European Society of Gynecology is void and without legal effect under this Policy.

5. CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION 4.0 INTERNATIONAL LICENSE

All articles published by European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO) are made available to readers and third parties under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

CC BY 4.0 permits any person to freely share, reproduce, adapt, and build upon the work for any purpose, including commercial use, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original authors, a link to the license is provided, and any changes are indicated. No additional permissions or fees are required.

The CC BY 4.0 license attaches to the Version of Record at the moment of online publication and is irrevocable. Once an article is published under CC BY 4.0, the license cannot be withdrawn or modified in a more restrictive direction. No supplementary conditions, additional contractual terms or embargo periods may be added to or layered upon the CC BY 4.0 license by the Publisher, by the European Society of Gynecology or by any other party acting on behalf of the Journal.

The Journal applies the CC BY 4.0 license uniformly to all articles. It does not adopt CC BY-NC, CC BY-ND, CC BY-NC-ND or any other Creative Commons variant as its standard or alternative license. The Journal does not grant article-level derogations from CC BY 4.0. Exceptions from the article's CC BY 4.0 license apply only to clearly identified third-party materials that cannot legally be released under CC BY 4.0, as provided in Section 8.

6. SCOPE OF THE CC BY 4.0 LICENSE BY CONTENT TYPE

The CC BY 4.0 license applies uniformly to all content types published by the Journal, including peer-reviewed research articles, systematic reviews, narrative reviews, protocols, guidelines, case reports, data notes, editorials, letters, commentaries and position papers. There is no differentiation of licenses between article types.

6.2  Supplementary materials. Supplementary materials published on the Journal's platform alongside an article - including additional tables, figures, appendices, audio, video and datasets - are covered by the same CC BY 4.0 license that applies to the article, provided that the authors hold the necessary rights to license them under CC BY 4.0 or that the materials are otherwise eligible for such licensing.

6.3  Retraction notices, errata and expressions of concern. Retraction notices, corrigenda, errata, addenda and expressions of concern published by the Journal are published under CC BY 4.0. The VoR of any retracted article retains the CC BY 4.0 license; the license attaches to the record that remains permanently accessible and is marked as retracted, consistent with the provisions of the Journal's Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern Policy.

Third-party materials included in an article are not covered by the article's CC BY 4.0 license unless explicitly stated. See Section 8 for the applicable provisions.

6.5  Software code and scripts. Software code, scripts, and other executable materials submitted as supplementary materials or deposited in associated repositories are subject to the CC BY 4.0 license only with respect to their accompanying textual and explanatory components. Creative Commons licenses are not designed for executable software. Authors are strongly encouraged to release software code and scripts under a recognized open-source software license such as MIT, BSD 2-Clause, Apache 2.0, or GPL v3. Where the authors specify no separate software license, the Journal will note this limitation in the supplementary materials metadata. The choice of software license does not affect the CC BY 4.0 license applicable to the article itself.

7. RIGHTS BY MANUSCRIPT VERSION

7.1  Submitted Manuscript (SM). Authors retain all rights in the Submitted Manuscript. The Journal makes no claim over any version before acceptance. Authors may deposit, post and distribute the SM on any personal or institutional website, in any repository and on any preprint server at any time without restriction or embargo. Where a SM is deposited on a preprint server, authors are encouraged to update the preprint record upon publication with a link to the VoR and its DOI. Detailed provisions on preprint deposit are contained in the Journal's Preprint Policy.

7.2  Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM). Authors retain all rights in the AAM. The AAM may be deposited in any repository or posted on any website immediately upon acceptance, without any embargo period. Where the AAM is deposited in a public repository, authors are requested (but not required) to include the following acknowledgment: "This is the Author Accepted Manuscript of an article published in European Gynecology and Obstetrics (EGO)[DOI]. The Version of Record is available at [URL]." The AAM may be deposited under the CC BY 4.0 license or in accordance with the requirements of the receiving repository, provided that such conditions are compatible with CC BY 4.0.

7.3  Version of Record (VoR). The VoR is published under CC BY 4.0. It may be deposited, shared, redistributed and reused by anyone - including the authors, their institutions, libraries, funders and third parties - in any repository, on any website, through any channel and for any purpose, subject only to the attribution requirements of CC BY 4.0. There is no embargo period on the VoR. The VoR available for deposit is identical to the VoR published on the Journal's platform.

8. THIRD-PARTY AND PRE-EXISTING MATERIALS

Third-party materials included in an article are not covered by the article's CC BY 4.0 license unless explicitly stated. Authors are solely responsible for identifying any third-party materials and for obtaining all permissions necessary for publication. Where a third-party material cannot be licensed under CC BY 4.0, it must be clearly identified in the caption, credit line or footnote of the relevant element as excluded from the article's CC BY 4.0 license, and the applicable permission basis or more restrictive license must be disclosed. Third-party materials that cannot be so identified and excluded must not be included in the article.

8.2  Pre-existing author materials. Authors may include previously published or otherwise pre-existing materials of which they are the copyright holders. Such inclusion grants the Publisher the same license to publish as applies to the article as a whole, and the CC BY 4.0 license applies to the included element from the moment of publication in the Journal.

8.3  Scales, questionnaires and instruments. Patient-reported outcome measures, validated clinical instruments and questionnaires may be subject to copyright by their developers. Authors must obtain explicit permission for reproduction or adaptation of such instruments and declare the permission status in the manuscript. Where such permission is restricted to specified uses, the incompatible elements must not be republished under CC BY 4.0 without the instrument developer's explicit consent.

8.4  Images of identifiable persons. Where an article includes photographs or images of identifiable individuals, authors must ensure that publication and redistribution under CC BY 4.0 is consistent with any consent obtained from the individuals depicted and with any applicable data protection or privacy legislation. Authors bear full responsibility for compliance with the Journal's Research Ethics Policy in this regard.

9. AUTHOR WARRANTIES AND REPRESENTATIONS

By submitting a manuscript to the Journal, the corresponding author, acting on behalf of all authors, warrants and represents that:

(a)  the article is an original work of the authors and does not infringe the intellectual property rights of any third party;

(b)  the authors hold, or have obtained all necessary authorizations to grant, the rights described in Section 4 of this Policy;

(c)  the article has not been published previously in a peer-reviewed journal in substantially the same form, and is not under simultaneous consideration by another journal;

(d)  all third-party materials included in the article have been appropriately identified and, where required, permissions sufficient for publication in the Journal have been obtained, and any materials excluded from the CC BY 4.0 license have been identified in accordance with Section 8;

(e)  the use of any copyrighted material in the article is authorized or constitutes a legitimate exception under applicable law;

(f)  the article does not contain any content that is unlawful, defamatory or in violation of any applicable regulation.

These warranties and representations are a condition of submission and publication. Where a breach is discovered after publication, the Journal may take corrective action consistent with the Corrections and Retractions Policy.

10. TEXT AND DATA MINING

10.1  Rights under CC BY 4.0. The CC BY 4.0 license expressly permits text and data mining (TDM) of content published in the Journal for any purpose, including commercial research, by any person or organization, subject only to the attribution requirements of the license. No additional permission or fee is required for TDM activities.

10.2  EU legal framework. The Journal acknowledges that Article 3 of Directive (EU) 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive) grants research organizations and cultural heritage institutions an exception for TDM for scientific research purposes. Under CC BY 4.0, the Journal's content is available for TDM by any person or organization, including those not benefiting from the DSM Directive exception, without further restriction.

10.3  API and automated access. The Journal supports automated access to published content through its available APIs and metadata endpoints, including CrossRef, OAI-PMH and any future machine interfaces operated by the Publisher. Crawlers, harvesters and TDM tools that comply with the Journal's robots.txt directives and rate limits are permitted to access and process published content.

11. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND MACHINE LEARNING

11.1  Permitted use. The CC BY 4.0 license, which applies to all content published in the Journal, permits the use of such content, the VoR, the AAM, and associated metadata, for the training and development of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) systems, subject to the attribution requirements of the license. No additional license, fee or permission is required.

11.2  Attribution in AI training. Where AI systems trained on content from the Journal are publicly deployed or form the basis of commercial products, the licensing chain beginning with CC BY 4.0 should be acknowledged and disclosed to the extent technically feasible and consistent with applicable guidelines. This is a recommendation and not a condition enforceable by the Publisher.

11.3  AI-assisted content within articles. The licensing provisions of this Policy apply to the article as a whole, including any elements produced with the assistance of AI tools and disclosed in accordance with the Journal's Artificial Intelligence Policy. Where AI-assisted tools have been used in the preparation of an article, human authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, integrity, originality and lawful licensing of all submitted and published material. The CC BY 4.0 license applies to AI-assisted elements only to the extent that such elements are protected by copyright under applicable law and that the authors or other rights holders are legally entitled to license them.

11.4  EU AI Act and TDM rights reservations. Where the content of published articles may constitute training data for AI systems subject to the EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), the Publisher does not add restrictions beyond those arising from the CC BY 4.0 license. The Publisher does not reserve rights against text and data mining, AI training, or machine-learning uses of content published under CC BY 4.0. The Journal will not implement machine-readable rights reservations intended to restrict lawful TDM or AI/ML reuse of CC BY 4.0 content. This statement does not affect third-party materials expressly excluded from the CC BY 4.0 license in accordance with Section 8. This Policy does not assume that AI-generated elements of an article are protected by copyright under any applicable law.

12. MORAL RIGHTS

The Publisher and the European Society of Gynecology recognize and respect the moral rights of authors as set out in Article 6bis of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886, last amended 1979) and as implemented in applicable national legislation.

12.1  Right of attribution. The right of authors to be identified as the authors of their work shall be preserved in all versions and all uses of the article published in the Journal, including in repositories, aggregators and third-party platforms. The CC BY 4.0 license requires attribution in all uses; the Publisher will include authors' names in all metadata deposits and communications.

12.2  Right of integrity. The right of authors to object to modifications of their work that are prejudicial to their honor or reputation is not affected by this Policy or by the CC BY 4.0 license. The CC BY 4.0 license permits adaptation of the work, but requires that the adapted version be clearly identified as such and that the original authors not be associated with the adapted version in any way that implies endorsement.

12.3  Waiver in applicable jurisdictions. In jurisdictions where moral rights may be waived by contract, the Publisher does not request and does not obtain any waiver of moral rights from authors as a condition of publication.

13. LICENSE DISPLAY AND MACHINE-READABLE METADATA

13.1  Article-level display. The CC BY 4.0 license, the identity of the copyright holder(s), and the license URL (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) shall be displayed on every article's landing page on the Journal's platform and in the full text of every article, including PDF, HTML and XML versions where available.

13.2  Machine-readable metadata. The Journal deposits machine-readable license information with Crossref for every published article. CrossRef deposits include article-level license metadata specifying the license_ref field with the applicable Creative Commons license URL, the start_date corresponding to the date of publication, the free_to_read element, and, where applicable, applies_to values for "vor", "am" and "tdm". This enables automated license detection by indexers, repositories and compliance tools.

13.3  Copyright statement on articles. The standard copyright and license statement on every published article shall read: "© [Year] [Author Name(s)]. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0), which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, including commercial use, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and source, a link to the CC BY 4.0 license is provided (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), and any changes made are indicated."

13.4  Open metadata. Article-level bibliographic metadata, including title, authors, abstract, affiliations, keywords, references, funding, license and DOI, are deposited with CrossRef under a CC0 1.0 Universal waiver (Public Domain Dedication) and released without embargo at the moment of publication.

14. BACKFILE CONTENT AND TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS

14.1  Scope. This section applies to articles published in the Journal before the adoption of this Policy, specifically those published before the commencement of Edikta S.r.l.'s publishing activities on behalf of the European Society of Gynecology.

14.2  Prior copyright arrangements. The Publisher acknowledges that legacy issues of the Journal (Volumes 1–7, published before January 2026) may have been published under different or unspecified copyright arrangements. The Publisher is committed to reviewing and, where legally permissible, rectifying license notices for backfile content to align with the CC BY 4.0 license. A CC BY 4.0 license may be applied retroactively to backfile articles only where the authors or other rights holders hold the necessary rights and provide explicit consent; the irrevocable nature of CC BY 4.0 means that it cannot be applied without authorization from the rights holder.

14.3  Addendum program. Where authors of backfile articles retain copyright and are willing to apply a CC BY 4.0 license to their previously published work, the Publisher will facilitate the issuance of a license addendum and will update the metadata and article record accordingly. Authors who wish to update the licensing status of their backfile article are invited to contact the Editorial Office.

14.4  No retrospective restriction. No article currently published under CC BY 4.0 or under any other open access license shall have its license changed to a more restrictive license following publication.

15. GOVERNMENT AND FUNDER USE LICENSES

15.1  NIH-funded research. Articles resulting from research funded in whole or in part by the United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) are published under CC BY 4.0, which is fully compatible with the NIH Public Access Policy (NOT-OD-25-047, effective 1 July 2025). The CC BY 4.0 license is also compatible with the Government Use License described in NIH supplemental guidance NOT-OD-25-049. No additional license or permission is required for NIH-funded authors to comply with the NIH Public Access Policy. Authors funded by NIH may deposit the AAM in PubMed Central immediately upon acceptance without restriction. Provisions for direct Journal deposit in PubMed Central are described in the Open Access Policy.

15.2  Horizon Europe. Articles resulting from research funded by the European Commission under Horizon Europe are published under CC BY 4.0, which satisfies the open access requirements of Article 17 of the Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement (MGA). No additional license, addendum or embargo is required for Horizon Europe compliance.

15.3  Wellcome Trust, UKRI and Gates Foundation. Articles resulting from research funded by the Wellcome Trust, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), or the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are published under CC BY 4.0 with no embargo, satisfying the immediate open-access requirements of all three funders' policies. Where a UKRI-funded article includes elements subject to Crown Copyright, the provisions of Section 3 of this Policy apply.

15.4  cOAlition S rights retention. Authors funded by cOAlition S member organizations may apply a rights retention statement to their submitted manuscripts consistent with the Plan S Rights Retention Strategy. The Journal's CC BY 4.0, zero-embargo model is natively compatible with all cOAlition S requirements. No publisher addendum, waiver or prior notification is required.

16. LICENSE IMPLICATIONS OF POST-PUBLICATION MODIFICATIONS

16.1  Corrections and erratum notices. The publication of a correction (corrigendum or erratum) does not alter the CC BY 4.0 license applicable to the VoR. The correction notice and the corrected version are each published under CC BY 4.0 and the license date applies from the original date of publication of the VoR, or from the date of publication of any corrected version where a new VoR is issued.

16.2  Retracted articles. Retracted articles are not removed from the Journal's platform but are permanently marked as retracted, consistent with the Corrections and Retractions Policy. The CC BY 4.0 license continues to apply to the retracted VoR. Third parties who have reused content from the article before retraction under CC BY 4.0 are not affected by the retraction with respect to their prior legitimate uses; however, they are expected to acknowledge the retraction status in any subsequent use or citation of the content.

16.3  Expressions of concern. The publication of an expression of concern does not alter the CC BY 4.0 license applicable to the article under investigation. Third parties are responsible for taking notice of expressions of concern when using or citing the article.

16.4  Post-publication amendments. No post-publication amendment may alter or restrict the CC BY 4.0 license in a way that is more restrictive than the license as originally applied. Any editorial or technical amendment to the published record that changes the article's substantive content constitutes a new VoR. It must be accompanied by a versioning record consistent with the Corrections and Retractions Policy.

17. RIGHTS RETAINED BY AUTHORS

Notwithstanding the license to publish granted under Section 4, authors of articles published in the Journal retain all of the following rights:

(a)  the right to be identified as the authors of the article in all uses;

(b)  the right to use the article, in whole or in part, in future academic and educational work, including textbooks, theses, course materials, conference presentations and grant applications, provided that the Journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication;

(c)  the right to deposit any version of the article in any repository, institutional or disciplinary, at any time without embargo;

(d)  the right to post any version of the article on their personal or institutional website and on academic social networks at any time without restriction;

(e)  the right to reproduce and distribute the article for personal non-commercial purposes;

(f)  the right to create adaptations and derivative works consistent with the terms of CC BY 4.0;

(g)  the right to use their article for subsequent publications, including in edited volumes, provided that the Journal is acknowledged;

(h)  the right to request correction of errors in the published VoR through the Journal's editorial process.

18. RIGHTS OF READERS AND THIRD PARTIES

Any reader, library, repository, indexer, aggregator, journalist, patient organization, educator, researcher or other person or organization may freely:

(a)  access, read, download, print, copy and distribute the article;

(b)  include the article, in whole or in part, in any publication, database or collection;

(c)  translate, adapt, remix, transform and build upon the article;

(d)  use the article for any purpose, including commercial use;

(e)  conduct text and data mining on the article as described in Section 10;

(f)  use the article or its contents in AI and machine learning applications as described in Section 11;

subject only to the attribution requirements of CC BY 4.0, which require that appropriate credit is given to the original authors, that a link to the CC BY 4.0 license is provided, and that any changes are indicated.

No user may impose conditions that restrict the rights of other users beyond those imposed by CC BY 4.0 itself.

19. FUTURE CHANGES TO THE LICENSING MODEL

The current licensing model (CC BY 4.0, author copyright retention, zero embargo, diamond open access) reflects the Publisher's and the European Society of Gynecology's commitment to maximizing the reusability of scholarly content and to globally equitable access.

Any change to the Journal's licensing model that would result in more restrictive terms than those currently applicable will not affect articles already published under CC BY 4.0. The CC BY 4.0 license applied to any published article is irrevocable and permanent.

If the Publisher or the European Society of Gynecology considers a change to the licensing model for future articles, a public notice shall be issued on the Journal's website at least 6 months before the change enters into force. Such notice shall include a clear description of the proposed change, the rationale, the effective date and the arrangements for articles submitted or accepted before the effective date.

20. GOVERNING LAW AND ENFORCEMENT

This Policy is governed by Italian law, without prejudice to the application of EU regulations and international copyright treaties that are directly applicable to the parties.

Any dispute between authors and the Publisher arising from the interpretation or application of the License to Publish or from this Policy shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of Rome, Italy, consistent with the Publisher's registered office and place of business, to the extent permitted by applicable mandatory law. This jurisdictional clause governs only the contractual relationship between authors and the Publisher; it does not restrict or modify the rights granted to the public, readers, or any third party under the CC BY 4.0 license, which operates independently of any agreement between the parties.

Authors who believe that their copyright or moral rights have been infringed by any party, including by the Publisher, may contact the Editorial Office at [•] or may seek independent legal advice. Complaints regarding rights infringement by the Publisher shall be addressed to the Publisher directly in the first instance. They may thereafter be escalated in accordance with the Journal's Complaints, Appeals and Whistleblowing Policy (CAWP).

21. INTERNATIONAL NORMATIVE REFERENCES

This Policy has been developed with reference to the following international standards, frameworks and guidelines:

•       Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (1886, last amended 1979)

•       Budapest Open Access Initiative (2002; BOAI20 recommendations 2022)

•       Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (2003)

•       Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

•       Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) - Transparency and Best Practice Criteria (2024); Copyright and Licensing guidance v2.0 (2025)

•       ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals (updated 2024)

•       Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Core Practices (2019, revised)

•       Directive (EU) 2019/790 on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market (DSM Directive), including Article 4(3) on TDM rights reservation

•       EU AI Act - Regulation (EU) 2024/1689

•       Plan S - cOAlition S Rights Retention Strategy; cOAlition S Strategy 2026-2030

•       NIH Public Access Policy (NOT-OD-25-047, effective 1 July 2025); NOT-OD-25-049 (Government Use License)

•       Horizon Europe Model Grant Agreement - Article 17

•       Wellcome Trust Open Access Policy (2021, updated 2025)

•       UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Open Access Policy (2022, updated 2025); UK Open Government License v3.0

•       Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Open Access Policy (updated 2021)

•       STM Association - AI Best Practices for STM Publishers (2024)

•       Crossref Metadata Best Practices - license metadata deposit standards (license_ref, start_date, free_to_read, applies_to)

•       Action Plan for Diamond Open Access (Science Europe / cOAlition S / OPERAS / ANR, 2022)

•       DIAMAS Project - Towards a Federated Model for Diamond Open Access (2025 recommendations)

•        NISO RP-45-2024 - Recommended Practices: Retractions, Removals, Corrections and Expressions of Concern