NPG to publish genomes using Creative Commons licence

["William W Armstrong" <notwwa@lsu.edu>]

[from Knowledgespeak Newsletter, Dec 11 2007]

NPG to publish genomes using Creative Commons licence - 11 Dec 2007

Scientific publisher Nature Publishing Group (NPG) 
<http://npg.nature.com/>, UK, has announced that is introducing a 
Creative Commons licence for original research articles 
publishing the primary sequence of an organism's genome for the 
first time in any of the Nature journals.

The Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 
Unported licence will enable researchers to freely share and 
adapt the work, provided the original is attributed and not used 
for commercial purposes, and that any resulting work is 
distributed under a similar licence. No publication fees will be 
applicable, and the articles will be available free of charge.

Nature Publishing Group has published first reports on many 
significant publicly-funded genome sequencing and analysis 
projects, most notably the human genome, published in Nature in 
February 2001. Wherever possible, NPG will apply the Creative 
Commons Attribution-Non- Commercial-Share Alike licence 
retrospectively to original research articles reporting novel 
primary genome-wide sequences that have previously been published 
in Nature journals. Only original research articles publishing 
the primary sequence of an organism's genome for the first time 
will be offered to users under the Creative Commons licence.

Molecular Systems Biology, an open access journal published 
jointly by NPG and the European Molecular Biology Organisation 
(EMBO), announced in October that it will offer all authors the 
option of publishing articles under the Creative Commons 
Attribution -Non-Commercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported licence.

All other articles published by the Nature journals will remain 
under NPG's existing licensing and copyright agreements. Under 
these agreements authors of original research articles retain 
their copyright, giving NPG an exclusive licence-to publish.

************************************

William W. Armstrong 
Sciences Collection Development Coordinator
Chemistry Librarian
Liaison to Physics & Astronomy
Middleton Library
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge, LA 70803 USA
Ph. (225) 578-2738
Fax: (225) 578-9432
Email: notwwa@lsu.edu