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<permissions> Permissions

Container element for copyright and license information for the entire article or for the object which contains the <permissions> element.

Usage/Remarks

The <permissions> element is used in two contexts: inside the metadata of an article or sub-article and inside the specific metadata for a block object such as a section, figure, or table.
When used in the article or sub-article metadata (including inside <event>), <permissions> refers to the entire document, containing the document’s copyright, copyright statement, permission to read, license, etc.
When <permissions> is contained in an object such as a figure, for example, it records the ownership of the intellectual property of the object, such as the current copyright statement, copyright year, etc. for that figure. If the figure was previously published or has a different author from the article, that information should be described using the <attrib> element, which is a container element for information concerning the origin of the figure, extract, display quote, poetry, or similar element to which it is attached (where it came from, who said it, who created it, etc.).
Contents of Permissions
The sub-elements of <permissions> are repeatable. If multiple values are applicable (such as multiple copyright years), they should be tagged separately rather than as multiple values within a single element. Repeated values do not describe the source of the material, they describe the current Intellectual Property for the article or object.
Related Elements
JATS has several elements that deal with the usage, permissions, and licensing that may be contained inside <permissions>. Some of these elements are taken from the NISO Access and License Indicators (ALI) 2015 Recommended Practice specification. The other element is JATS-specific and predates the NISO recommendation:
  • <ali:free_to_read> — This NISO ALI element is a simple flag whose presence indicates that the document is free-to-read, without making statements about any additional reuse rights or restrictions. Date attributes can specify when the document is free to be read.
  • <ali:license_ref> — This NISO ALI element points to a public license or waiver. By “public”, NISO means that the offer is generally and not privately offered. Such a license may be either human or machine-readable text that explains the terms of use or reuse for the content.
  • <license> — A JATS-specific element whose content describes a set of conditions under which the content may be used, accessed, and distributed. This element was provided to hold the license text. The 2015 NISO ALI recommendation is to store in the XML document a URI that points to the license instead of the full license text. For users who adopt the NISO ALI recommendation, the <license> element could be used to hold a short representation of the license, a sentence or two to be used for display. Alternatively, a publisher could choose not to implement NISO ALI and to put the text of the license in <license>.
    The <license> element takes the @xlink:href attribute to point to the text of the license. However, the new NISO ALI element <ali:license_ref> performs the same pointing function. JATS best practice is to omit the @xlink:href attribute from <license> if a NISO ALI <ali:license_ref> is used.
Attributes
content-type
specific-use

Multi-lang Attributes

lang-focus
lang-focus-custom
lang-group
lang-source
lang-source-custom
lang-translate
lang-variant
lang-variant-custom

Base Attributes

id
xml:base
xml:lang
Models and Context
May be contained in
<app>, <array>, <article-meta>, <boxed-text>, <chem-struct-wrap>, <disp-quote>, <event>, <fig>, <front-stub>, <graphic>, <media>, <preformat>, <sec-meta>, <statement>, <supplementary-material>, <table-wrap>, <table-wrap-foot>, <verse-group>
Description
The following, in order:
Content Model
<!ELEMENT  permissions  %permissions-model;                          >
Expanded Content Model
(copyright-statement*, copyright-year*, copyright-holder*, (ali:free_to_read
| license)*)
Tagged Samples
Article copyright 
...
<article-meta>
 <article-id pub-id-type="pmid">...</article-id>
 <title-group>...</title-group>
 <contrib-group>...</contrib-group>
 <aff id="StLukes">...</aff>
 <pub-date publication-format="print" date-type="pub" iso-8601-date="1999-03-27">
  <day>27</day><month>03</month><year>1999</year>
 </pub-date>
 <volume>318</volume>
 <issue>7187</issue>
 <fpage>837</fpage>
 <lpage>841</lpage>
 <pub-history> 
  <event>
  <date date-type="accepted" iso-8601-date="1999-01-29">
    <day>29</day>
    <month>01</month>
    <year>1999</year>
   </date>
  </event>
 </pub-history> 
 <permissions>
  <copyright-statement>Copyright © 1999, British
   Medical Journal</copyright-statement>
  <copyright-year>1999</copyright-year>
  <copyright-holder>British Medical Journal</copyright-holder>
 </permissions>
 <abstract>
  <p>To examine the effectiveness of day hospital attendance 
   in prolonging independent living for elderly people.</p>
 </abstract>
</article-meta>
...
Creative Commons 
...
<article-meta>
 ...
 <permissions>
  <copyright-statement>Copyright: &copy; 2004 Eichenberger
   et al.</copyright-statement>
  <copyright-year>2004</copyright-year>
  <license license-type="open-access"
    xlink:href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">
   <license-p>This is an open-access article distributed under the 
    terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits 
    unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, 
    provided the original work is properly cited.</license-p>
  </license>
 </permissions>
 <related-article related-article-type="companion"
   xlink:title="synopsis" xlink:href="10.1371/journal.pbio.0020359"
   vol="2" page="e359">
  <article-title>How to Make a Mother in Five Easy Steps</article-title>
 </related-article>
 ...
</article-meta>
...
<ali:free_to_read> start date 
...
<permissions>
 <ali:free_to_read xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" 
   start_date="2014-01-01"/>
</permissions>
...
“open license” 
...
<permissions>
 <license>
  <ali:license_ref xmlns:ali="http://www.niso.org/schemas/ali/1.0/" start_date="2015-02-03">
   http://www.examplesite.org/open_license.html</ali:license_ref>
 </license>
</permissions>
...
Related Resources