The Public Library of Science (PLOS) applies the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY) to works we publish (read the human-readable summary or the full license legal code). Under this license, authors retain ownership of the copyright for their content, but allow anyone to download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy the content as long as the original authors and source are cited. No permission is required from the authors or the publishers.

Appropriate attribution can be provided by simply citing the original article (e.g., Kaltenbach LS et al. (2007) Huntingtin Interacting Proteins Are Genetic Modifiers of Neurodegeneration. PLOS Genet 3(5): e82. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.0030082).

For any reuse or redistribution of a work, users must also make clear the license terms under which the work was published.

This broad license was developed to facilitate free access to, and unrestricted reuse of, original works of all types. Applying this standard license to your own work will ensure that it is freely and openly available in perpetuity.

If you have a question about the Creative Commons License please use this contact form and choose “General Questions.”