Open access adoption rates are slowing down due to the growing expense associated with it, and a lack of peer review transparency. To address this, I propose two measures with a special focus on the Indian context. The first entails a copyright reform that addresses the distinctive economy of research publications, utilising statutory licensing to support universal and sustainable open access. This licensing will require research publications to be open access, while relying on the Commercial Courts of India to set a fair price for publishers to charge institutional research users, such as universities. The second measure introduces a Publication Facts Label (PFL) on journal publishing platforms that will provide readers with ten verifiable data points on each research article’s adherence to scholarly publishing standards. The PFL is currently being rolled out for journals using the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform, with discussions underway on its potential as an industry-wide standard for research transparency and trust.