Open Access, Copyright and Licensing

Current status as of: 1 June 2026

1. Purpose and Scope

AMG Transcend Association supports immediate and unrestricted access to scholarly research and maintains an open-access publishing model across its current journal portfolio.

This policy establishes publisher-level principles concerning open access, publication charges, copyright ownership, licensing, reuse, author rights, third-party material, repository deposit, and transparency of copyright and licensing information.

Individual journals may provide additional instructions consistent with these principles and with the copyright and licensing terms applicable to their published content.

2. Open Access Model

Journals currently published by AMG Transcend Association operate under a Platinum/Diamond Open Access model.

Published scholarly articles are made freely accessible online without subscription barriers or reader-registration requirements.

Access to the published Version of Record is provided immediately upon publication without an access embargo imposed by AMG Transcend Association.

Open access to an article and the legal rights governing its reuse are related but distinct matters.

The rights governing copying, redistribution, adaptation, translation, commercial reuse, and other uses are determined by the license and other rights information applicable to the individual published work.

3. Publication Charges

At the date stated, AMG Transcend Association journals do not charge authors Article Processing Charges (APCs), submission fees, acceptance fees, publication fees, or other mandatory author charges as a condition of publication.

Authors are not required to make a payment in order for a manuscript to receive editorial consideration or to be published following acceptance.

Editorial assessment, peer review, and publication decisions must remain independent of financial considerations.

If a journal introduces any publication-related charge in the future, the journal must disclose clearly, before submission:

  • the nature and amount of the charge;
  • the stage of the publication process at which it applies;
  • any applicable exemptions or waivers;
  • any conditions governing payment.

No mandatory publication fee may be introduced retrospectively for a manuscript on terms that were not disclosed when that manuscript entered the editorial process.

The publisher will update this section if its publication-charge model materially changes.

4. Funding and Volunteer Support of Publishing Activities

AMG Transcend Association’s scholarly publishing activities are currently supported through the Association’s own non-commercial resources and the voluntary contributions of its members.

Editorial, administrative, and organizational activities carried out within the Association are performed on a voluntary basis. The Association does not currently pay salaries, honoraria, or other remuneration to its members for carrying out these publishing-related responsibilities.

Direct costs associated with the operation of the journals and publishing infrastructure are covered through the Association’s own resources and financial contributions from its members.

The publisher does not currently rely on Article Processing Charges, submission fees, acceptance fees, publication fees, advertising revenue, or commercial sponsorship to finance its journals.

Financial contributions to the Association or participation in supporting publishing costs do not confer editorial authority and must not influence manuscript evaluation, peer review, reviewer selection, acceptance or rejection decisions, or other scientific editorial processes.

5. Immediate and Continuing Open Access

Published articles must remain openly accessible from the journal website without subscription or paywall restrictions.

AMG Transcend Association does not impose an access embargo on newly published scholarly articles under its current publishing model.

The open-access status of an article must not be withdrawn after publication merely for commercial, financial, institutional, strategic, or reputational reasons.

Post-publication Corrections, Expressions of Concern, retractions, or other editorial actions may change the scholarly status or presentation of an article but must be implemented in accordance with the applicable policies concerning the integrity of the scholarly record.

6. Copyright Ownership

Authors retain copyright in their scholarly articles unless different ownership applies under applicable law or a pre-existing institutional, employment, contractual, or other legally valid arrangement.

Publication in an AMG Transcend Association journal does not require authors to transfer ownership of copyright to the publisher solely as a condition of publication.

Authors remain the copyright holders of their original work, subject to any rights held by employers, institutions, funders, collaborators, or other parties under applicable law or prior agreements.

Authors are responsible for ensuring that they possess sufficient rights to authorize publication and application of the stated license to the material they submit.

7. Authorization Granted for Publication

By agreeing to publication, authors authorize the relevant journal and AMG Transcend Association, on a non-exclusive basis, to publish, reproduce, distribute, communicate, display, archive, preserve, index, and otherwise make the article available in accordance with the applicable open-access license and publishing arrangements.

This authorization permits the publisher to:

  • maintain and disseminate the Version of Record;
  • distribute article metadata;
  • provide article content and metadata to appropriate indexing and discovery services;
  • deposit content with appropriate repositories, preservation systems, or archiving services;
  • perform legitimate technical transformations necessary for publication, accessibility, indexing, interoperability, migration, and preservation.

The publisher’s authorization is non-exclusive. Authors retain the rights available to them as copyright holders and under the applicable Creative Commons license.

8. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Scholarly articles published under the current AMG Transcend Association open-access model are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, unless an individual article or clearly identified item states otherwise because different rights apply.

Under CC BY 4.0, users may, subject to the terms of the license:

  • copy and redistribute the licensed material in any medium or format;
  • share and disseminate the licensed material;
  • adapt, remix, transform, or build upon the licensed material;
  • use the licensed material for lawful purposes, including commercial purposes.

These permissions apply only to material covered by the license and remain subject to the conditions of CC BY 4.0.

The authoritative terms of the CC BY 4.0 license are maintained by Creative Commons.

Historical articles remain subject to the copyright and licensing terms validly applicable to them at the time of publication unless the relevant rights holder subsequently authorizes additional rights.

9. Attribution Requirements

Reuse of material licensed under CC BY 4.0 must comply with the attribution requirements of the license.

As applicable, users must:

  • provide appropriate credit to the creator or creators;
  • identify the source;
  • retain relevant copyright and licensing information supplied with the work;
  • provide a reference or link to the CC BY 4.0 license;
  • indicate whether changes were made;
  • avoid implying endorsement by the authors, journal, publisher, or other attributed parties where no such endorsement exists.

Attribution may be provided in a reasonable manner appropriate to the medium and context of reuse.

The open-access license permits reuse but does not permit false attribution, misleading authorship claims, or misrepresentation of a modified work as the unchanged official Version of Record.

10. Adaptations, Translations, and Reuse

CC BY 4.0 permits adaptations, translations, derivative works, and other forms of reuse subject to the terms of the license.

Users creating an adapted, translated, modified, or derivative version must distinguish their changes appropriately from the original publication and must not present the modified version as an official journal Version of Record unless it has been formally published as such by the journal.

AMG Transcend Association does not require separate prior permission for uses already authorized by the applicable Creative Commons license.

Reuse falling outside the applicable license, or involving material excluded from the article’s Creative Commons license, may require separate authorization from the relevant rights holder.

11. Third-Party Material

A Creative Commons license can apply only to material for which the licensor possesses sufficient authority to grant the relevant rights.

Articles may contain figures, photographs, illustrations, datasets, maps, instruments, questionnaires, scales, excerpts, or other material owned or controlled by third parties.

Authors must ensure that such material is:

  • used under a compatible license;
  • in the public domain;
  • used under an applicable statutory exception or limitation;
  • reproduced with appropriate permission from the relevant rights holder;
  • otherwise lawfully usable and publishable.

Where third-party material is not covered by the article’s CC BY 4.0 license, this must be indicated clearly where reasonably practicable.

Users wishing to reuse material excluded from the article’s Creative Commons license are responsible for determining whether additional permission is required.

The open-access license applying to an article must not be interpreted as granting rights in material for which the authors or publisher do not possess licensing authority.

12. Author Responsibilities Concerning Copyright

Authors must ensure that submission and publication of their manuscript do not knowingly infringe the copyright, licensing, confidentiality, privacy, contractual, or other legitimate rights of third parties.

Authors are responsible for:

  • identifying material reproduced or adapted from other sources;
  • providing appropriate attribution;
  • obtaining required permissions before publication;
  • complying with conditions attached to reused material;
  • accurately identifying the source and licensing status of third-party content;
  • informing the journal of material-specific restrictions affecting publication, licensing, or reuse.

Permission documentation may be requested during editorial or production assessment where necessary.

Authors must not represent third-party material as being covered by CC BY 4.0 where they lack authority to license that material on those terms.

13. Author Reuse and Self-Archiving

Authors may share, distribute, deposit, and reuse their published articles in accordance with the CC BY 4.0 license applicable to the article.

Authors may make the published Version of Record available through:

  • institutional repositories;
  • disciplinary repositories;
  • personal or institutional websites;
  • scholarly profiles or networks;
  • teaching and educational materials;
  • other lawful dissemination channels.

AMG Transcend Association does not impose an embargo on author deposit of the openly published Version of Record under its current publishing model.

Authors should provide appropriate citation and, where reasonably possible, identify and link to the journal Version of Record and its persistent identifier.

14. Repository, Indexing, and Preservation Deposit

AMG Transcend Association and its journals may provide article content and metadata to appropriate repositories, indexing services, bibliographic databases, research infrastructures, discovery systems, and digital-preservation or archiving services.

Such distribution may include full text where permitted by the applicable license, contractual arrangements, and technical requirements.

Deposit or redistribution through these mechanisms must preserve appropriate information concerning:

  • authorship;
  • citation;
  • copyright;
  • licensing;
  • Version of Record status;
  • corrections, Expressions of Concern, retractions, or other subsequent changes in publication status where applicable.

Specific claims concerning participation in indexing, archiving, preservation, or repository services must be made only where such participation has been established and verified.

Detailed preservation arrangements are addressed in the Archiving and Digital Preservation policy.

15. Text and Data Mining and Machine Processing

Material published under CC BY 4.0 may be reused for text and data mining, computational analysis, machine processing, and other lawful purposes to the extent permitted by the license and applicable law.

Such reuse remains subject to appropriate attribution and other applicable CC BY 4.0 conditions.

The Creative Commons license does not remove obligations arising from rights or restrictions outside the scope of the copyright license, including:

  • privacy and personality rights;
  • confidentiality;
  • data-protection requirements;
  • contractual restrictions;
  • patent rights;
  • trademark rights;
  • rights applicable to third-party material.

16. Copyright and License Information at Article Level

Each published article must contain or be directly associated with clear copyright and licensing information sufficient for readers, repositories, indexing systems, and reuse services to determine its status.

Article-level information must identify, as applicable:

  • the copyright holder;
  • the applicable Creative Commons or other license;
  • the version of the license;
  • a reference or link to the applicable license;
  • any material-specific exception or restriction that materially affects reuse.

Copyright and licensing information must be represented consistently in article metadata where technically supported.

The journal website, article landing page, HTML version where available, article PDF or other Version of Record, and relevant metadata must not contain contradictory statements concerning copyright ownership, licensing, or reuse rights.

Historical articles must accurately reflect the license and copyright terms applicable to those articles rather than being assigned a different license retrospectively without appropriate authorization.

17. Irrevocability of Published Creative Commons Licenses

Where a work has been validly licensed under CC BY 4.0, the rights granted by that license cannot be withdrawn from users who comply with its terms.

Subsequent withdrawal of an article from active display, Correction, retraction, change in journal ownership, change in publisher policy, or discontinuation of a journal does not retrospectively convert previously licensed content into conventionally restricted content.

Retraction affects the scholarly status and reliability of an article; it does not erase the historical fact that the work was published under the applicable license.

Retracted or corrected content must remain clearly identified in accordance with the Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern policy, subject to any exceptional legal, privacy, confidentiality, or safety restrictions requiring removal or suppression.

18. Funder and Institutional Requirements

Authors are responsible for determining whether their funder, employer, institution, research contract, or another applicable arrangement imposes additional open-access, licensing, repository, deposit, or rights-retention requirements.

AMG Transcend Association journals must provide sufficiently clear copyright and licensing information to allow authors to assess compatibility with such requirements.

Where a legitimate funder or institutional requirement is compatible with the journal’s publishing model, authors may comply with that requirement without surrendering rights otherwise retained under this policy.

Authors should raise any material incompatibility with applicable rights or licensing requirements before publication.

19. Changes to the Publisher’s Open-Access Model

Any material future change affecting publication charges, author copyright, the default open-access license, access conditions, reuse rights, or repository policy must be communicated transparently.

Changes must not be applied retrospectively in a manner that removes or restricts rights already validly granted under the license applicable to previously published articles.

Historical articles remain governed by the copyright and licensing terms validly applicable to them at the time of publication unless the relevant rights holders subsequently authorize additional rights.

Changes applying to future publications must be communicated sufficiently clearly for authors to understand the applicable terms before publication.

20. Relationship with Other Policies

This policy should be read together with applicable AMG Transcend Association and journal policies concerning:

  • Editorial Independence and Governance
  • Advertising, Sponsorship and Commercial Activities
  • Authorship and Contributor Responsibilities
  • Publication Ethics and Research Integrity
  • Data Integrity and Reproducibility
  • AI and Generative Tools
  • Corrections, Retractions and Expressions of Concern
  • Archiving and Digital Preservation
  • Complaints and Appeals

Individual journals may provide additional copyright, licensing, repository, self-archiving, or author guidance consistent with this policy and with the terms applicable to individual published articles.