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 |
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.