Are you a writer or a publisher trying to figure out the confusing world of CC-BY? Not just CC-BY, but countless types of permissions and best practices on how to obtain permission for previously published material?
No worries! There is a process that can help facilitate and streamline requesting permissions for your manuscript — enter RightsLink!
RightsLink is a service provided by the Copyright Clearance Center or CCC.
RightsLink is used to streamline the permission request process for authors who are using copyrighted material. Trying to understand who to email, how much to pay (if applicable), and if you are requesting the right type of permission use can be an extremely confusing process for many. RightsLink is a great tool to use to make this process much simpler!
RightsLink is not just available to authors either. It enables publishers, funders, institutions, and authors to manage or monetize, the use of their intellectual property while providing users with a simple way to request and purchase (if applicable) permissions for specific uses of copyrighted materials.
RightsLink highlights some key features of how it helps publishers according to their product sheet linked here. A few to note are as follows:
- Assists publishers in automating any open access agreements they may have
- Helps publishers by streamlining a singular workflow to authors for managing their open access charges.
- It can help increase the speed at which work is published and strengthen open-access compliance
- It helps to build trust and transparency with stakeholders
- RightsLink joins and strengthens a community amongst peers in the shift to open access
RightsLink is a popular platform for the scientific scholarly community. It honors over 2,000 open-access institutional agreements with institutions and funders, it is used by over 30 trusted publishers, and it represents over 5,000 trusted journals.
If you are interested in RightsLink for your organization, it can help manage agreements, and publication charges, and even has an author services feature that can help ease an author’s experience by streamlining workflows. You can check out more regarding RightsLink’s Author Services feature here.
To summarize, RightsLink has some great key features that include the following:
- Licensing Management
- Customized Permissions
- E-Commerce Integration
- Compliance Support
- Analytics and Reporting
To try out the RightsLink feature, you can search for any DOI, Title, ISSN, or Author name at the link here.
This will bring up a list of publication results. Once you find the publication that you are looking for, there should be a button titled “Request Permission”.
Once this button is clicked, it will pull up a page where you can click exactly what you would need to use the copyrighted content for, i.e. medical communication, publications, general business use, academic course content/ material, or document delivery.
You would then select what you are representing — an organization, business, author/ individual, etc.
From there, there are various dropdowns that you can select to request permission and price for the particular copyrighted content! You can pay (if applicable) within the website as well once you create a RightsLink account. Once the transaction is completed, you will then be provided with proof of the transaction via a receipt that is delivered by email. This receipt is important, particularly for authors, as it may be required to submit along with your manuscript submission for proof of permission for re-printed material.
RightsLink is a great, and easy, tool for many users. Whether an individual author, business, or publisher, it provides a lot of resources within the academic community to streamline what could otherwise be a tricky process! With all of the time and effort that goes into the writing and the publication process, RightsLink can be a helpful service to take out additional efforts in finding permissions for work.
Check out our previous blog here if you want to learn even more about RightsLink. As peer review within the scientific community leans more toward open access, learning about services that can help you understand and streamline the permissions process can be enlightening! Additional resources, including customer services for RightsLink, can be found at the link here.
By Emma Dahlsten
Emma is an Editorial Assistant at Technica Editorial
