The term "open access" (OA) refers to the free, immediate, world wide access to and the rights to use scholarly research. In the early 2000s, OA pioneers like Peter Suber recognized that modern connective technologies like the world wide web enable people to share research, scholarship, and information in general like never before. Embracing the potential of these technologies, OA advocates argue that open and unrestricted access to scholarly research can provide both broad societal benefits while also offering advantages to authors, such as increasing reach, findability, and citation of their work.
Open access and copyright law are inherently intertwined. Because copyright protects creative works like journal articles automatically upon creation, and because copyright enables rightsholders to restrict access to and use of their works in several ways, articles are not necessarily available for anyone to use without permission by their rightsholders. OA often uses tools within copyright to make works widely available and to overcome the barriers to access and use presented copyright restrictions. Specifically copyright enables rightsholders to grant permissions -- licenses -- that allow others to use their works.
Rightsholders can use copyright licenses to permit others to use their creative works in various different ways. Open licenses are copyright licenses that promote downstream use of copyrighted works by removing or significantly limiting the barriers to access and use that copyright puts up. Even though open licenses may put some stipulations on the use of a work, the fundamental purpose of open licenses is to enable and encourage downstream use.
Probably the most widely known open licenses are the Creative Commons licenses. Now on their fourth iteration, the Creative Commons licenses offer legally vetted and user friendly ways for rightsholders to share their works. CC offers six licenses:
