GetFTR expands support for perpetual rights and journal transfers

GetFTR has enhanced its entitlements checking service to better support perpetual rights, ensuring uninterrupted access to journal content even after a publisher has transferred a journal. This update benefits both researchers and publishers by recognising perpetual rights both from a licensing perspective and when journals change publishers.

When an institution holds perpetual rights to a journal, GetFTR now ensures entitlement requests are sent not only to the current publisher but also to previous publishers that hosted the journal. This means researchers can continue to access content they are entitled to via their institution’s subscription, even if the journal has moved to a new publisher. It also means researchers can access content they have perpetual rights too, even if their institution has stopped subscribing.

To enable this, GetFTR logs journal transfers using freely available data sources from Crossref and ISSN, allowing entitlement requests to be routed to all relevant publishers. If an article is accessible on multiple platforms, priority is given to the current publisher, with their link appearing in the entitlement response provided to discovery tools.

This enhancement increases access to trusted content, helps institutions maximise the value of their subscriptions, and supports publishers that offer perpetual rights.