Rights management policies in the Open Access environment

Since the aim of Open Access is the removal of any economic, technical and legal barrier to the access to peer-reviewed published output of research, the creation and implementation of Rights Management Policies in higher education is a strategic issue for an effective and really practice Open Access endorsement. Italian Universities' priority should be the identification of stakeholders and the allocation of their own interests. A policy statements should explain in a very clear way how each faculty member's ownership should accomplish their digital scholarly material ensuring that the availability and the accessibility of this material is not adversely affected by the copyright. Policies on Open Access should be a fundamental part of the mission of our Universities, because it is involved in any process from creation to dissemination of scholarly works; for this reason University policies should balance the interests of stakeholders - reserving rights or benefits for research uses or teaching activities and ensuring that the work it funds can be read and utilised by the widest possible audience. Managing copyright is a skill to be created. A variety of approach can exist even within one country, depending by laws or by habits to faculties. Copyright laws are inadequate to deal with the complex issues surrounding the management of intellectual works created at Universities. On Government side we need new legislations such as specific laws for the scholarship communication world. Nowadays the copyright is perceived as a very strong legal barrier for research and teaching, because copyright laws influence in a negative way the dissemination and the consequent impact of intellectual research output, with heavy cultural, social and economic relapses. On the administrative side we have to work inside our University. We need different levels of policies which foresee agreements that seek to assure to University and to its authors the ability to use and manage the works in fulfilment of their most important interests