CC BY 4.0 in a medical article: check the rights before sharing

1. Start with the article and version you intend to release

List the manuscript text, figures, tables, supplementary files and any separately deposited material. Record which version each entry refers to. A licence on a published article does not automatically describe every file in the author’s working folder. An accepted manuscript, final typeset article and independent dataset may have different notices and different rights holders.

Read the target journal’s current author agreement alongside any relevant funding terms. Save the specific provision and the date checked. If the journal offers several options, identify the option for this article rather than borrowing the footer from another paper. An unanswered licensing question should remain assigned to someone who can resolve it before release.

2. Understand what the licence permits and requires

CC BY 4.0 allows sharing and adaptation of licensed material, including commercial reuse, subject to its conditions. When sharing, retain the supplied attribution and notices, identify the licence, link to it, and indicate modifications. The legal code explains the details, including reasonable attribution for the medium. Giving credit does not authorize an implication that the original author endorses the reuse.

The licence also prohibits additional restrictions that prevent recipients exercising the licensed rights. Its grant concerns rights that the licensor has authority to license. Privacy, publicity and similar personality rights, and patent and trademark rights, need separate attention; the text contains specific qualifications. Do not treat an open-licence badge as a substitute for checking an identifiable person’s permissions or the rights in an imported figure.

Reference: Creative Commons: CC BY 4.0 legal code

3. Keep different components in different states

Imagine a team preparing an educational article. It has drawn a new flow diagram. It also wants to reuse an image obtained from another publisher, but has not checked the permission terms. Finally, its working folder contains a confidential source extract that is not intended for publication. The inventory below is an invented planning exercise; it grants no actual permission.

Assign a rights reviewer to each unresolved item. “Found online” and “included in our draft” do not answer who can authorize reuse. If a third-party component will be excluded from the article’s licence, the exception must be clear where readers encounter that component. If its use cannot be resolved, choose another authorized component or remove it before publication.

On small screens, scroll the table horizontally, or focus it and use the arrow keys.

4. Draft attribution from verified information

For a permitted adaptation, prepare an attribution note with the actual creator, source link, licence reference and a plain description of your changes. Retain relevant supplied notices. Do not replace missing source information with a plausible-looking title or identifier. Ask the rights reviewer to compare the note with the source and the relevant terms.

A useful internal template is: creator — material title — source — applicable licence or permission — changes — exception, if any. These are fields to complete, not a licence statement ready to paste. If you redraw a graph, also check that axes, units, categories and uncertainty remain faithful to the source. Attribution and scientific fidelity are separate parts of the review.

5. Make the notice consistent across the release

Inspect the article page, PDF and any supplementary files that will actually be distributed. A correct landing-page notice cannot repair a contradictory footer embedded in the PDF. Check that figure-level exceptions remain visible after typesetting and that a download does not detach a component from the notice it needs.

Keep an internal record of the approved notices and the exact released versions. When a later correction changes a figure, review the replacement’s rights as well as its scientific content. An old permission record for a different figure is not approval for the new one. Preserve the history so the next production editor can understand which material was cleared.

6. Close the specific rights questions

The practical output is a component list with resolved permissions, accurate exceptions and consistent release files. A funding requirement, author agreement and component permission can impose different questions; resolve each in its own scope. Where interpretation remains uncertain, give the actual documents and proposed use to the institution’s appropriate rights contact.

This fictional dossier is still incomplete: the third-party terms and original-diagram authority have not been verified. Its value is making those gaps visible before a public promise is made. Use the checklist below on your real article, recording the evidence instead of simply marking every item complete.

Questions for a practical final check

• Every intended public component identified
• Actual journal and funding terms checked
• Rights holder and authority recorded
• Third-party exceptions resolved and visible
• Attribution and modifications accurate
• HTML, PDF and supplementary notices consistent