The “Copyright” working group has just updated its Recommendations and legal aspects related to the creation and dissemination of a scientific journal ^[1]Recommandations et aspects juridiques relatifs à la création et la diffusion d’une revue scientifique which is accessible on HAL. These recommendations set out the legal obligations involved and help identify all the actors involved in how a journal functions in legal terms. This is essential information when drawing up contracts.

This new version gives the definition of the legal person or structure which enters into contracts with authors of contributions to a journal (note 14). It integrates the General Data Protection Regulation (RGPD) (page 9) along with a model document on the management of personal data which needs to be sent to authors (page 11). It also includes a model for a simplified application for an International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) from the National Library of France (BNF) and explains how registering trademarks with the Inpi ^[2]French National Institute of Industrial Property has changed.

Also, in 2020 the group made three model contracts available for the transfer of copyright adapted to public publishing – two for periodicals and one for collective works. They are freely adaptable and distributed under a CC0 licence. These are a logical part of the open science context. Depending on the model, these are intended to support the transition to the principles of Plan S and the obligation to deposit work in open archives or define a non-exclusive rights transfer contract in accordance with openness principles.

The models are available in different formats in French and in English along with a presentation, all of which can be found on the Ouvrirlascience.fr website.

The group is made up of members of the Médici network of public scientific publishing professionals, members of the Committee for Open Science’s (CoSO) Open Scientific Publishing working group and the Association des éditeurs de la recherche et de l’enseignement supérieur (Aedres) ^[3]Association of Research and Higher Education Publishers.