The topic of copyright has been high on SURF’s agenda for a number of years. Copyright often turns out to be an impediment to ICT-supported innovation in higher education and research. It may therefore not always be possible to take full advantage of the opportunities opened up by digitisation and the development of the Internet, for example improvements in access, storage, and exchange of information. Each of the “players” in this field has its own interests to pursue, and these do not always agree.
For years now, SURF has worked – in the interests of authors – to break down existing barriers and to provide access to the results of publicly funded research.
As a result, the new technologies have opened up new opportunities for scientists and scholars, who can benefit from being able to make their research results available to other people and allow them to be used (or reused). After all, research builds on the ideas and knowledge of other people. That is the underlying thinking behind SURF’s efforts to ensure maximum access to research results. This website has been set up because of the importance that SURF attaches to informing authors and institutions about copyright.
- SURF has developed tools to help authors make arrangements regarding scientific/scholarly works. Where scientific/scholarly articles are concerned, the Licence to Publish, the Licence to Deposit, the Legal Toolkit, and the Copyright Toolkit are available on this website.
Arrangements made with publishers regarding the publication of a book are often more far-reaching and tailored to the particular work concerned. This specific character makes it more difficult to develop clear tools to help the authors of such publications. A few years ago, however, SURF-IWI and the Dutch Publishers Association (NUV) did formulate a number of basic principles for contracts to be signed by authors for the publication of books and monographs.
>> Go to practical tools
SURF has set up the Digital Rights Expertise Community (SURFdirect) to provide support for higher education and research regarding the use of texts, images and audio. This community is made up of representatives of SURFfoundation, SURFnet and SURFdiensten, together with experts in the fields of images/audio and copyright. A great deal of the knowledge and experience generated within the SURF DiRECt community is available on this website.
>> More about SURFdirect
With these activities, SURF has built up a wealth of knowledge and experience, which it now wishes to make available to the whole higher education sector.
This copyright website is one of the channels that SURF is using:
- to contribute to a better understanding of copyright;
- to make the topic of copyright more accessible;
- to develop practical guidelines and tools that authors (or educational institutions) can make use of on a day-to-day basis;
- to encourage professionals at higher education institutions to make more far-reaching arrangements regarding copyright.