End user reuse for content published by Elsevier
Main licenses
Authors’ choice of publishing model and end user license defines how end users can re-use content published on our platforms. Note, this differs from authors' rights in their journal articles which are outlined here.
There are five main options offered by Elsevier:
Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license: used by authors who choose to publish open access.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) license: used by authors who choose to publish open access.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license: used by authors who choose to publish open access or where an author self-archives their work i.e., makes their accepted manuscript, published under the subscription model, freely available after the embargo period.
Copyright Elsevier or a Society: used by authors who choose to publish under the subscription model.
Elsevier user license: used for Elsevier open archive, which makes the final published article from certain journals free to read after an embargo period.
End user rights
The following table compares the rights end users have to reuse content without permission or payment, depending on the end user license that is applied. Please note that further permission may be required from third party rights owners for any content that is identified as belonging to a third party.
CC BY | CC BY-NC | CC BY-NC-ND | Elsevier or society copyright1 | Elsevier user license | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Distribute for non-commercial purposes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Distribute for commercial purposes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Include in a collective work (such as an anthology) for non-commercial purposes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Include in a collective work (such as an anthology) for commercial purposes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Create and distribute revised versions, adaptations or derivative works of or from an article (such as a translation) for non-commercial purposes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Create and distribute revised versions, adaptations or derivative works (such as a translation) for commercial purposes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
Text or data mine for non- commercial purposes | Yes | Yes | Yes2 | No3 | No |
Text or data mine for commercial purposes | Yes | No | No | No | No |
1 Users accessing content as part of a subscription agreement may have additional rights under that agreement. Users should contact their library or subscription management group for more information.
2 In line with the terms of the end user license, adaptations cannot be shared with others.
3 Where legal access is obtained by a user, that user is able to text or data mine subscription content for non-commercial purposes without sharing any adaptation of the original content with others.
The license deed and legal code for these four licenses and other less commonly used licenses can be found here opens in new tab/window.
Find out more
For information on hosting research published by Elsevier see our hosting guidelines.
For use of Elsevier material not defined here, including permission for commercial use, please see our permissions page or visit the Permissions Support Center opens in new tab/window.