Newman JC, Feldman R. Copyright and open access at the bedside. The New England Journal of Medicine 2011;365:2447-2449
What can researchers do to ensure that other colleagues can use clinician tools they developed to improve patient care? A good solution is that authors provide explicit permissive licensing, ideally with a form of copyleft. Any new tool developed with public funds should be required to use a copyleft or similar license to guarantee the freedom to distribute and improve it. Yet authors would maintain ownership and copyright of their tool and could profit by licensing it for a fee to commercial users or publishers.
What can researchers do to ensure that other colleagues can use clinician tools they developed to improve patient care? A good solution is that authors provide explicit permissive licensing, ideally with a form of copyleft. Any new tool developed with public funds should be required to use a copyleft or similar license to guarantee the freedom to distribute and improve it. Yet authors would maintain ownership and copyright of their tool and could profit by licensing it for a fee to commercial users or publishers.
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