This page summarizes the various licenses that apply to American Physical Society journal content for the purposes of re-use. APS journal articles are published under a variety of licenses and specific publication rights have been granted to the APS by the authors of the published articles.
Unless explicitly licensed for use under a different license, the APS-formatted journal article PDF is governed by the APS Copyright Transfer Agreement signed by the author and any applicable copyright laws. If published within a subscription journal, access is further covered by the terms and conditions for using our online journals and our Subscription Agreement (PDF).
Unless explicitly licensed for use under a different license, the APS Copyright Transfer Agreement applies to the Accepted Manuscript PDF as well. The Accepted Manuscript PDF is generally unavailable on the APS journal platform. For articles made publicly accessible through CHORUS (and not otherwise available under a CC-BY-3.0 or CC-BY-4.0 license), the Accepted Manuscript PDF is made available one year after publication to non-subscribers for usage consistent with the APS Copyright Transfer Agreement and any applicable copyright laws.
Unless explicitly licensed for use under a different license, Text Data Mining of APS journal content requires a separate written bilateral agreement with the APS. For articles made publicly accessible through CHORUS (and not otherwise available under a CC-BY-3.0 or CC-BY-4.0 license), the Accepted Manuscript PDF will be made available for Text Data Mining to all users one year after the date of publication. Use of this content is covered by the APS Copyright Transfer agreement and any applicable copyright laws.
Some APS journal articles are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (CC-BY-3.0). Any further distribution or use of content licensed under CC-BY-3.0 must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. This content is available for Text Data Mining without a separate bilateral agreement.
Works authored exclusively by employees of the U.S. Government and the Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, and United Kingdom Crown may not be subject to copyright. However, access to those articles published in APS subscription journals is by subscription only and is subject to the terms and conditions for the usage of our online journals and the APS subscription agreement.