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Elsevier
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Open access licenses

We aim to provide the best choice of user license options, which define how readers can reuse open access articles published on our platforms.

Elsevier's policy

  • Offer a choice between a commercial and a non-commercial Creative Commons license for gold open access articles in our proprietary titles

    • The choice is dependent on the journal in which the author chooses to publish — please refer to the journal's homepage for specific details

  • Use the Elsevier user license for our open archive content

  • We support green open access and accepted manuscripts can be self-archived following our sharing guidelines and are required to attach a CC-BY-NC-ND license

Choosing a license

Once selected, Creative Commons user licenses are non-revocable. We recommend authors check if their funding body requires a specific license. 

See the Creative Commons opens in new tab/window website for more details about what to consider before choosing a user license. Find a full list of user licenses used by Elsevier.

User license

Read, print and download

Redistribute or republish the article (e.g., display in a repository)

Download for text and data mining purposes

Translate the article

Reuse portions or extracts from the article in other works

'Sell' or re-use for "commercial purposes"

Commercial license: CC BY 4.0

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Non-commercial license: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Yes

Yes

Yes *for private use only and not for distribution

Yes *for private use only and not for distribution

Yes, for non-commercial purposes

No

Non-commercial license: CC BY-NC 4.0

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes, for non-commercial purposes

No

Elsevier user license

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

No

No

Please note: Under the CC BY-NC-ND license, CC BY-NC license, and for the Elsevier user license permitted 3rd party reuse is only applicable for non-commercial purposes. For further details on the rights granted to Elsevier see our copyright information or to obtain permission for commercial use see our permission information. Also note further permission may be required from the rights owner for any content within an article that is identified as belonging to a third party.