Universal access to reliable and relevant information is key to supporting citizens’ participation in the democratic process and ensuring better policies for better lives. The OECD is committed to supporting information integrity and accessibility. Its policy on open access seeks to ensure that, as a fundamental part of its mission, the published outputs of its activities are freely accessible and reusable by the public, with the goal of increasing their accessibility, visibility and impact.
OECD Open Access Policy
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Scope of the Open Access Policy
The OECD Open Access Policy applies to most written content published by the Organisation, including OECD publications, working papers, journal articles, policy papers, policy briefs, case studies and country notes. The applicable open access terms depend on the date of publication of the content.
- Content published from 1 July 2024 is generally available under CC licences. The default licence applied by the OECD is Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0), but others might apply in exceptional cases. The copyright page or front page will indicate whether the content is published under a CC licence and which one applies.
- Content published before 1 July 2024 is governed by the OECD terms and conditions. This content is generally available for commercial and non-commercial purposes on terms similar to CC BY 4.0.
While most material in OECD content is owned by the OECD, it may exceptionally include material owned by third parties. Permission will normally be required from the third party to reproduce its material. It is the user's responsibility to verify whether permission from a third party is necessary.
Making content available under a CC licence does not mean the OECD forfeits its intellectual property rights or transfers those rights to other entities. The OECD retains full copyright and all intellectual property rights in the content it produces.
Definition of Open Access
Content is generally considered Open Access if:
· it is freely accessible to everyone, on the internet or otherwise; and
· the owner grants all users broad rights to use, copy, or distribute the content.
Open Access is generally granted using public licences like Creative Commons (CC) licences. These are a set of widely used standard licences that copyright holders can apply to their content. By publishing content under a Creative Commons licence, licensors irrevocably authorise public use of their work, subject to acknowledging the original author and any additional terms in the particular licence.
Common CC licences include:
· CC BY 4.0 – this is the most open CC licence and permits users to copy, redistribute and transform (including translate) content for any purpose, including commercial purposes.
· CC BY NC 4.0 – this permits users to copy, redistribute and transform (including translate) content for non-commercial purposes only (‘NC’ stands for non-commercial).
· CC BY ND 4.0 – this permits users to copy and redistribute content for any purpose, including commercial purposes, but prevents users from sharing any derivative work they create from the licensed content (‘ND’ stands for non-derivative).
· CC BY SA 4.0 – this permits users to copy, redistribute and transform (including translate) content for any purpose, including commercial purposes. However, the user may only distribute the transformed content under the same licence as the original content.
· CC BY NC ND 4.0 – this permits users to copy and redistribute the content for non-commercial purposes only. Users are not, however, permitted to share derivative work they create from the licensed content.
· CC BY NC SA 4.0 – this permits users to copy, redistribute, and transform (including translate) the content for non-commercial purposes only. The user may only distribute the transformed material under the same or more restrictive terms as the original content.
The number 4.0 stands for the latest version of the licences, which are not governed by any national law (they are considered to work independently from national legal systems) and protect the privileges and immunities of international organisations.
Use of the OECD logo and Open Access
Creative Commons licences only apply to content produced by the OECD. They do not cover use of the OECD's logo or branding.
Users wishing to use the OECD logo must separately obtain the Organisation's written permission, which will only be granted in exceptional cases. Requests should be sent to comrights@oecd.org.
Print publications
Despite the OECD’s move towards a digital-first publications strategy, the OECD is expected to face continuing demand for printed publications, even as an Open Access publisher.
To manage this demand, the OECD will co-operate with an external print-on-demand partner to ensure its publications remain available to the public in printed format. Given the associated cost implications of producing and distributing hardcopy publications, these publications will be priced and made available via external distribution channels.
External or joint publishing
The OECD will generally try to ensure that its content published by third parties, for example in journals or books, or which it co-authors with third parties, will also be made available under Creative Commons licences. However, this may not always be possible and will depend in part on the third party's own open access policy. Please consult the copyright page of the content to determine whether it is subject to a Creative Commons licence.