copyright protection thesis

Graduate Thesis Submission Guide

• Thesis Guide
• Formatting Requirements
• Submitting Your Thesis
• Managing References
• Database Pro Tips
• Avoiding Plagiarism This link opens in a new window
• Discoverability, Embargo, and the Scholarly Conversation
• Open Access Images
• Requesting Permission for Copyrighted Materials
• Thesis Collection This link opens in a new window

Copyright and Your Thesis

Respecting copyright — and understanding the basics of copyrighted-related issues — is an important aspect of your thesis-writing process and an issue that will continue to arise throughout your academic and creative career. We know copyright can be intimidating and hard to make sense of: after all, discussions of copyright often stray into complex legal, creative, and ethical terrain. While it isn't necessary for you to be a copyright expert, it is essential that you understand copyright issues as they relate to including and referencing the work(s) of others in your thesis. 

With that in mind, here are our overarching recommendations as you consider which third party materials to include in your thesis: 

• Use open access works and/or works covered by Creative Commons Licenses
• Ensure your use of copyrighted materials counts as "fair use" (in other words, repurpose, reinterpret, or otherwise "transform" the copyrighted work in question)
• Request permission for copyrighted works
• Remove potentially problematic materials entirely from your thesis

We recommend you follow the above guidelines in the order that they're listed ; that is, seek out open access works first to avoid any potential copyright infringements. If you are unable to do so, seek fair use for copyrighted materials. If each of these strategies is unsuccessful, your last resort may be to request permission for copyrighted work[s], or to remove problematic third party content from your thesis entirely if this option fails. The following three subpages — Open Access Images, Fair Use, and Requesting Permission for Copyrighted Materials — breaks each of these issues down into greater detail. 

• Image Use and Copyright for your Thesis (Slides)

Why Does Copyright Matter?

For the purposes of your thesis, you don't need to be an expert in copyright law. However, understanding the major issues and questions around copyright will help you make informed decisions about your thesis and protect it from copyright challenges once it's published. Understanding and respecting copyright is also about giving credit where it's due, an essential aspect of Pratt's Academic Integrity Policy . So while respecting copyright has to do with protecting your thesis from infringement challenges, on a deeper level it also has to do with pursuing your academic and creative work with integrity and acknowledgement of other's contributions.

The following excerpt from Kenneth Crews' article  Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis  summarizes this sentiment well: 

" Finishing your dissertation is exhausting and gratifying. You have invested countless days of research, followed by hours of writing late into the night. You made exciting breakthroughs, and you aspire to a career of further research. You probably did not expect to indulge in copyright at this stage of your study. However, attention to copyright can help avoid pitfalls and reveal opportunities to further your scholarly goals. Given the way that the law operates, copyright law most certainly protects your dissertation as well as the quotations, photographs, music, diagrams, and many other works that you have included in your doctoral study. The decisions you make about copyright can directly affect the quality of your work, your ability to publish your dissertation, and your opportunities for building upon your years of research throughout your career. Attending to the fundamentals of copyright can be important for your scholarship, regardless of your discipline or field of expertise ." (Crews, 2013). 

Copyright Checklist

The following checklist — also summarized from Kenneth Crews' article — should be referred to throughout the process of researching and writing your thesis. Though you might be tempted to put these considerations off until later, remember: any preparation or planning done early on will make things much easier as you get closer to submitting your thesis.  

• Do a thorough sweep or your thesis draft and identify all third-party materials you plan to include in your final project. Common third party materials include images, sources from the Web, and long quotations (over 1.5 pages, single-spaced) from published works. 
• Ask yourself, " Are any of these materials open access ?" If yes, they have no copyright restrictions.
• Ask, " Does my inclusion of this material count as fair use ?" 
• Ask, " Do any of these materials have Creative Commons Licenses ?" Creative Commons Licenses allow for free distribution of otherwise copyrighted works (with proper attribution).  
• For any materials that don't meet the above conditions, ask, " Do I have permission to use these ?" If not, refer to the "Requesting Permission for Copyrighted Materials" page of this guide. 
• Ask, " Am I including any materials that I've created but that have been previously published elsewhere ?" Even if you are the original author of these materials, you will need permission to include them in your thesis. 

Resources and Further Reading

We've provided relevant excerpts from these resources throughout this guide, and have also included them in their entirety below for you to review.  

• ProQuest Copyright Guide The following guide by ProQuest offers guidelines for avoiding copyright infringement and introduces the kinds of materials or sources that require copyright permissions. This document also includes a sample Permission Form and instructions to follow when requesting permission from copyright owners.
• ProQuest - Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis This article by Kenneth Crews offers a more extensive overview of copyright and its significance, before discussing the fundamentals of copyright — both protecting your own and respecting others' — as they relate to your thesis. Though not required reading, Crews' article has a wealth of useful information that will strengthen your understanding of copyright as you research and write your thesis.
• Pratt Institute Academic Integrity Policy Copyright issues directly relate to Pratt's Academic Integrity Policy, as each stress the importance of crediting and acknowledging the contributions other writers, artists, and thinkers have made to your work. "Giving credit where it's due" is a central aspect of academic integrity and an essential element of your thesis.
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Thesis and Dissertation Guide

• « Thesis & Dissertation Resources
• The Graduate School Home
• Introduction
• Copyright Page
• Dedication, Acknowledgements, Preface (optional)
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables, Figures, and Illustrations
• List of Abbreviations
• List of Symbols
• Non-Traditional Formats
• Font Type and Size
• Spacing and Indentation
• Tables, Figures, and Illustrations
• Formatting Previously Published Work
• Internet Distribution
• Open Access

Registering Copyright

Using copyrighted materials.

• Use of Your Own Previously Published Materials
• Submission Steps
• Submission Checklist
• Sample Pages

IV. Copyrighting

A copyright is an intangible right granted to the author or originator of certain literary or artistic productions, under which they are invested for a limited period with the sole, exclusive privilege of making copies and publishing and selling them.

Copyright protection automatically exists from the time the work is created in fixed form. There is no requirement that the work be published or registered to obtain protection under copyright law. The copyright of any work immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work, unless it is a work-for-hire, or unless ownership has been assigned by written agreement.

Receipt of a submitted and approved thesis or dissertation in The Graduate School results in the publication of the document by the University Library at UNC-Chapel Hill. As such, each student grants the University a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce the student's work, in whole or in part, in electronic form to be posted in the University Library database and made available to the general public at no charge. This does not mean that UNC-Chapel Hill owns the copyright to your work (you do), but the University has the right to reproduce and distribute your work. Public universities often require students to allow reproduction and distribution of academic work to support the dissemination of intellectual thought and discovery. Please review the Copyright Policy of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for additional information.

Regardless of whether or not you register copyright for your thesis or dissertation, UNC-Chapel Hill requires that you include a copyright notice following the title page. See Section I of this Guide and the sample copyright page for the format of this notice. Including this page helps to establish that you are the owner of the work. It also protects you, as the copyright holder, from anyone claiming innocent infringement or unintentional violation of copyright.

You may wish to register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office at the Library of Congress. As mentioned above, copyright registration is not a condition to copyright protection. There are, however, advantages to registration, especially if you have a claim of infringement of your copyright. Registration may be made at any time within the life of the copyright, but there are advantages to filing for registration within three months of publication. For more information on registration, consult the website of the U.S. Copyright Office .

There are two main ways for you to file for copyright of your thesis or dissertation:

• You may empower ProQuest to file the application on your behalf. When you submit your thesis or dissertation, ProQuest charges a fee for this service ($55, subject to change). The service includes preparing an application in your name, submitting your application fee, depositing the required copy or copies of the manuscript, and mailing you the completed certificate of registration from the Library of Congress.
• Alternately, you may file for copyright directly. Visit the following U.S. Copyright website for more information about registering your work . There is a copyright fee for filing copyright directly with the U.S. Copyright Office ($35, subject to change).

Any copyrighted materials used in your work, beyond brief excerpts, may be used only with the written permission of the copyright owner. Book and journal publishers normally hold the copyright for all materials they publish. Therefore, even if you are the sole or one of several authors of material in a published book or journal, you must obtain written permission from the copyright holder if you are including this material in your document. Remember that use of reproductions or excerpts of other media, such as music, graphic images, or computer software may also require permissions.

Your letter to the copyright holder needs to make clear that you seek written permission to preserve (on microfilm and digitally) and publish (in print and digital form) your thesis or dissertation through ProQuest and that ProQuest may sell, on demand, for scholarly purposes, single copies of your work, which includes the copyright holder's material. Your letter must also seek written permission for the document to be submitted in electronic format to UNC-Chapel Hill where it will be placed in a database and made available through the University Library to the general public at no charge via the Internet.

You are responsible for securing all necessary permissions and paying any permission fees in advance of using copyrighted materials in your work.

Use of Your Own Previously Published Material

Some academic programs permit you to include articles or other materials that you have previously published, that have been accepted (or submitted, in press, or under review) for publication, or that have been otherwise presented to the public within the body of your thesis or dissertation. In all such instances the following guidelines apply:

• If the material is co-authored, your academic program must approve its inclusion in your thesis or dissertation.
• If the material is copyrighted (if you are the sole author but the copyright is held by the publisher), you must fulfill the conditions specified in the section above on using copyrighted materials .
• The material, if included in the body of your text, must conform to all formatting guidelines outlined in this Guide. See the Formatting Previously Published Work section for details.

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• University of Michigan Library
• Research Guides

Copyright for Dissertations

• Copyright in Your Dissertation
• Using Others' Content
• Publishing Your Dissertation

Copyright Questions?

The University of Michigan Library Copyright Office provides help with copyright questions for University of Michigan faculty, staff and students. Please email us with questions or visit our website for more information.

Legal Advice

The information presented here is intended for informational purposes and should not be construed as legal advice. If you have specific legal questions pertaining to the University of Michigan, please contact the Office of the General Counsel .

If you require legal advice in your personal capacity, the lawyer referral services operated by the Washtenaw County Bar Association and the State Bar of Michigan may be helpful to you.

Copyright Formalities

In the United States today, copyright protection automatically covers all new copyrightable works, including your dissertation. The moment a copyrightable work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression (e.g., written on a piece of paper or on your hard drive), it is subject to copyright.

In the past, authors had to comply with certain formalities in order to obtain copyright protection. These formalities included registering the work with the US Copyright Office and placing a copyright notice on the work. Copyright law no longer requires that authors comply with these formalities merely to obtain copyright protection. However, registering a work and putting a copyright notice on a work still come with legal benefits, so authors often do these things anyway.

Copyright Notice

Under current US law, you do not have to provide a copyright notice on your work to receive copyright protection. However, if you are making your work publicly available, you may want to.

Putting a copyright notice (the copyright symbol (©), the year of publication, and the name of the copyright holder) on a work tells the rest of the world that the work is protected by copyright. If the copyright holder later sues someone for infringing her copyright in the work, she can point to the notice to show that the defendant is not an “innocent infringer," which can lead to higher damages. A copyright notice also lets others know whom to contact if they would like a license to use the work.

• Copyright Basics: US Copyright Office Circular 1 This PDF publication from the US Copyright Office explains the basics of copyright law, including copyright notice.

Copyright Registration

Under current US law, you do not have to register your work to receive copyright protection. You may want to register it anyway, because copyright registration comes with certain legal benefits. If the work is registered within three months of its publication date or before a particular infringement occurs, the copyright holder can recover statutory damages (monetary awards that need not be connected to actual harm suffered by the copyright holder) and attorney’s fees if she is successful in an infringement suit. Also, registration is required before the author can bring a lawsuit about the use of her work. However, despite these benefits, many works are never registered because registration takes time and money.

Registering a copyright is not difficult. For instructions and forms, visit the US Copyright Office website . If you have any questions regarding copyright registration, the US Copyright Office has a toll-free help line at 1-877-476-0778. You may register a work at any time while it is still in copyright.

Registration costs can vary depending on the type of work and whether or not you are the sole author. The U.S. Copyright Office's Circular 4  has the most up to date information about registration fees.

Registration by ProQuest

If you submit your dissertation to  ProQuest , they will register the copyright on your behalf, for a fee. The Rackham Graduate School encourages Ph.D. candidates to discuss this option with their advisors before selecting it.

Who Holds Copyright

Under US law, the initial copyright holder is the author of the work. In most cases, copyright law treats the creator(s) of the work as the author(s). Copyright is automatic; it applies to the work as soon as it is fixed (or recorded) in some way.

If multiple people created the work, only those who have contributed copyrightable elements are considered authors for the purpose of copyright law. Coming up with the idea for the work alone is not enough to be an author. See  Joint Works for more if you’d like to learn more about how having multiple authors affects how we think about copyright of the work.

If someone creates a work as an employee (or in certain cases, as a contractor), that person’s employer is considered the author of the work. See  Works Made for Hire  for more information on when a work is considered a work made for hire.

Who Holds Copyright in University of Michigan Dissertations

A University of Michigan dissertation author is the initial copyright holder for her dissertation. As the copyright holder, she has certain rights under copyright law. In the United States today, those rights can be separated and split. The author can give others permission to exercise some or all of those rights. That is called a license. If the author agrees only to give that permission to one entity at a time, the license is exclusive.

An exclusive license that lasts until the end of the copyright term is a transfer of copyright. To be valid, a copyright transfer must be in writing and must be signed by the copyright holder or the copyright holder’s agent. The recipient of a copyright transfer can then license or transfer the copyright.

In the academic context, licenses and transfers of copyright are particularly common in publishing agreements. In many cases, the author transfers all or part of the copyright in her publication to the publisher. Academic authors also use the Creative Commons licenses to increase access to their work, either in advance or as part of a publishing agreement.

Rights of Copyright Holders and Users

The author is granted rights in the work , including the right to reproduce the work, to make derivative works, and to distribute the work to the public. The author can transfer those rights to someone else and can give others permission to exercise them by means of a license . Users can also use the work without permission if their use falls within one of the user’s rights .

/images/cornell/logo35pt_cornell_white.svg" alt="copyright protection thesis"> Cornell University --> Graduate School

Fair use, copyright, patent, and publishing options.

• Is information that you plan to include from others considered “fair use” and are you acknowledging these sources correctly?
• Embargo of online copies
• Creative Commons license
• Has a patent application been filed (or will one be) on the basis of your thesis or dissertation research?
• Register for copyright?
• Supplementary materials
• Make your work discoverable on search engines?
• Make your work accessible to people with visual disabilities

1. Is information that you plan to include from others considered “fair use” and are you acknowledging these sources correctly?

You are responsible for acknowledging any facts, ideas, or materials of others that you include in your work. You must follow the guidelines for acknowledging the work of others in the “Code of Academic Integrity and Acknowledging the Work of Others” (published in the Policy Notebook for the Cornell Community ) .

If you use any copyrighted material in the dissertation or thesis, it is your responsibility to give full credit to the author and publisher of work quoted. The acknowledgment should be placed in a footnote at the bottom of the first page of the paper or chapter. Additionally, you must determine whether use of the material can be classified as a “fair use” by performing an analysis of your use of each copyrighted item. The Cornell Copyright Information Center’s Fair Use Checklist ) is a helpful tool for performing this analysis. (See also, Copyright Law and the Doctoral Dissertation: Guidelines to Your Legal Rights and Responsibilities , published by ProQuest, or The Chicago Manual of Style , published by the University of Chicago Press.)

If your use of material is not considered a “fair use,” you must obtain written permission from the copyright owner. Two copies of each permission letter must be submitted with the dissertation or thesis. ProQuest has specific requirements for the content of the permission letter. For these guidelines, consult the ProQuest Doctoral Dissertation Agreement form (published by ProQuest).

If you have already published or had accepted for publication part of your own dissertation or thesis material in a journal, depending on the terms of your publication agreement, it may be necessary to write to that journal and obtain written authorization to use the material in your dissertation.

2. Embargo of online copies

The value of your dissertation extends well beyond your graduation requirements. It’s important that you make an informed decision about providing online access, via ProQuest and eCommons, to your work. This decision can expand the visibility and impact of your work, but it can also shape the options available to you for publishing subsequent works based on your dissertation.

ProQuest’s ProQuest Dissertations and Theses (PQDT) database indexes almost all dissertations published in the U.S. and provides subscription access online to the full text of more recent dissertations. ProQuest also sells print copies of dissertations, paying royalties to authors, when they exceed a minimum threshold. Authors retain copyright in the works they submit to ProQuest.

eCommons is a service of the Cornell University Library that provides long-term, online access to Cornell-related content of enduring value. Electronic theses and dissertations deposited in eCommons, unless subject to embargo, are freely accessible to anyone with an internet connection. When submitting to eCommons, you retain copyright in your work. Ph.D. dissertations and master’s theses submitted to ProQuest are automatically submitted to eCommons, subject to the same embargo you select for ProQuest.

Electronic copies of dissertations in PQDT or eCommons may be made accessible immediately upon submission or after an embargo period of six months, one year, or two years. You may wish to consider an embargo period which helps address publishers’ interests in being the first to publish scholarly books or articles, while also ensuring that scholarship is accessible to the general public within a reasonable period of time. Your decision should be made in consultation with your special committee.

3. Creative Commons license

Creative Commons licenses provide authors with a straightforward and standardized means of prospectively granting certain permissions to potential users of the author’s material. Authors may request proper attribution, permit copying and the creation of derivative works, request that others share derivative works under the same terms, and allow or disallow commercial uses. Authors may even choose to place their works directly into the public domain. You will have the option of selecting a Creative Commons license when you upload your dissertation or thesis to ProQuest, and your choice will automatically be applied to the copy of your work in eCommons.

4. Has a patent application been filed (or will one be) on the basis of your thesis or dissertation research?

Cornell University Policy 1.5 governs inventions and related property rights. Inventions made by faculty, staff, and students must be disclosed to the Center for Technology Licensing at Cornell University (CTL). Theses and dissertations describing patentable research should be withheld from publication, in order to avoid premature public disclosure.

Use the delayed release (embargo) option if a patent application is or will be in process, noting the reason for the delay as “patent pending.” If you have any questions, please contact Cornell’s Center for Technology Licensing at 607-254-4698 or [email protected] .

5. Register for copyright?

Copyright law involves many complex issues that are relevant to you as a graduate student, both in protecting your own work and in referencing the work of others. Discussion of copyright in this publication is not meant to substitute for the legal advice of qualified attorneys. A more detailed discussion of copyright law can be found in the publication from ProQuest entitled Copyright Law and the Doctoral Dissertation: Guidelines to Your Legal Rights and Responsibilities by Kenneth D. Crews.

Copyright protection automatically exists from the time the work is created in fixed form and the copyright immediately becomes the property of the author. Registration with the United States Copyright Office is not required to secure copyright; rather it is a legal formality to place on public record the basic facts of a particular copyright. Although not a condition of copyright protection itself, registering the copyright is ordinarily necessary before any infringement suits can be filed in court.

To register a copyright for your dissertation or thesis, register online or download printable forms . You may also request forms by mail from the Information Section, U.S. Copyright Office, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20559, or contact them by telephone at 202-707-3000.

Doctoral candidates: You may authorize ProQuest to file, on your behalf, an application for copyright registration. This option will be presented to you as part of the submission process.

6. Supplementary materials

If supplementary materials (audio, video, datasets, etc., up to 2GB per file) are part of your thesis or dissertation, you may submit them as supplementary files during the online submission process. For help selecting long-lived file formats, note ProQuest’s guidance in their document, “Preparing Your Manuscript for Submission (Including Supplemental Files).” File formats for which ProQuest does not guarantee migration may still have a high likelihood of preservation in Cornell’s digital repository; please see the eCommons help page for further guidance.

Do not embed media files in the PDF version of your thesis or dissertation, as this can significantly increase the size of the file and make it difficult to download and access. Include a description of each supplementary file in the abstract of your thesis or dissertation. You may include an additional supplementary file containing more detailed information about the supplementary materials as a “readme” file or other form of documentation; this is particularly advisable for data sets or code. The Research Data Management Service Group ( [email protected] ) offers assistance in preparing and documenting data sets for online distribution.

7. Make your work discoverable on search engines?

ProQuest offers authors the option of making their graduate work discoverable through major search engines including Yahoo, Google, Google Scholar, and Google Books. If you chose the Search Engine option on their dissertation “paper” publishing agreement or within ProQuest’s PROQUEST ETD Administrator (electronic submission service), you can expect to have your work appear in the major search engines.

If you change your mind and do not want your work to be made available through search engines, you can contact customer service at [email protected] or 800-521-0600 ext. 77020. In addition, if you did not initially adopt this option but now want your works made available through this service, contact the customer service group to change your selection.

Please note that search engines index content in eCommons, regardless of the choice you make for ProQuest.

8. Make your work accessible to people with visual disabilities

When creating a PDF version of your thesis or dissertation it is important to keep in mind that readers may use assistive technology such as screen readers to access your document.  Follow best practices to ensure that your thesis or dissertation is accessible to everyone.  These resources may be helpful:

• Cornell CIT’s guidance for creating accessible PDFs
• Checking accessibility using Acrobat Pro
• Embedding alternative text for images in Word
• Save a Word doc as an accessible PDF

• KU Libraries
• Subject & Course Guides
• Copyright Resources
• Copyright for Dissertations and Theses

Copyright Resources: Copyright for Dissertations and Theses

• Getting Started
• Using Copyrighted Works in Scholarship
• Copyright and Teaching
• Copyright Considerations for Authors
• Public Performance Rights for Screening Media

Copyright Considerations for Theses and Dissertations

Copyright affects the author of a thesis or dissertation in two ways:  1) As a user of copyrighted material within the thesis or dissertation and 2) As the copyright owner of the thesis or dissertation. 

In addition to the general resources for all authors on the Getting Started , Using Copyrighted Works in Scholarship and Copyright Considerations for Authors tabs on this guide, this page includes information and resources that address common copyright concerns of authors of theses and dissertations. 

KU Libraries’ Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright is happy to assist KU faculty, staff, and students with questions concerning copyright and fair use of copyrighted materials, in consultation with the KU Office of the General Counsel as needed. Contact us at [email protected] for assistance.

There are guides for graduate scholars from other institutions that you might find helpful, though they will not have a KU perspective:

• Theses and Copyright (MIT)
• Copyright on Campus:  Copyright Concerns of Graduate Researchers (University of Florida)
• Copyright and Fair Use: Copyright Concerns of Students (ATLA)

Using Previously-Published Materials as Chapters

In some disciplines, it's common to include entire articles that were published previously solely by the author or sometimes with co-authors as chapters in the thesis or dissertation.  In the case of co-authored material, each co-author has full copyrights to the entire work, unless there are contractual reasons why this is not the case, such as when an author is an employee of a project that claims copyright in any publications resulting from the research funded by the project.  The issue is that most article publication agreements transfer the author's copyrights to the publisher.  This gives the publisher control over how the work is used and distributed.  This means that authors may not have the rights to include their previously-published work as chapters in their thesis or dissertation without asking permission from the publisher first.

There's a handy list of publishers and their default policies at the bottom of the University of Florida's Copyright Concerns of Graduate Researchers resource. 

KUMC Graduate Students :  Graduate Studies at KUMC has posted instructions about how to cite previously published work and how to submit copyright permissions.   See page 18 of the KUMC Formatting Guidelines for more information.

How do you know if you can include your previously-published work?

Does the article have a creative commons license.

• Authors can include the work as long as they use the work in accordance with the Creative Commons license.

Don't have the publication contract or aren't sure what the contract terms mean?  Try this first: 

• Find the article on the journal web site and click on the Permissions link.
• On the resulting screen, the requestor will usually be asked if they are the author of the article and how they intend to use it. 
• Select "Reuse in a thesis/dissertation"  and complete the rest of the information requested.
• Read the resulting screens carefully to see if the article can be used in the thesis or dissertation. 
• If not, see Asking for Permission , below, for some tips.

Did the publication contract include language that allows the author to use the work after it's published in a new work or specifically in a thesis or dissertation? 

• This is often the case in disciplines where articles are included in theses/dissertations, but not always.  If the contract allows, the author can include the work as long as it is used in accordance with the terms of the publication contract.

Publication agreement doesn't allow the author to use their article in a new publication?  

The author will need to ask the publisher for permission to reuse the article.  See Asking for Permission , below, for some tips.

Asking for Permission

Getting permission takes time; do this as soon as you know you want to use the article.

• Find the Contact information for the journal.  This is often found on the journal website in an About... , Contact or Permissions menu.
• Your name and when you are planning on graduating.
• Indicate that you are the author of the article and that you want to include it in your thesis or dissertation.
• Ask what you need to do to obtain permission.
• Send an email with the subject "Permissions Needed" and include the information above in the email message. 
• If you are very close to graduation, contact the publisher's Permissions department by phone rather than email. 

Author as Copyright Owner

One of the graduation requirements at KU is the completion of the Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETD) Release Form .  In the Copyright section of that form, you will certify that your work does not, to the best of your knowledge, infringe upon copyrights owned by someone else, through, but not limited to plagiarism, unapproved reproduction of materials or improper citation.

Generally, an author has the copyrights to their thesis or dissertation from the moment that it is fixed in a tangible format, such as a Microsoft Word file, or a printed copy. 

• According to the KU Intellectual Property Policy , the University of Kansas does not claim copyright in theses or dissertations produced by KU students, except for those special circumstances defined in the policy.
• Authors don’t have to include a copyright statement--e.g. Copyright 2019 Jane Smythe-- in the work, though it’s sometimes helpful because it makes it clear who has the copyrights to the work. 
• As the copyright owner of your thesis or dissertation, you need to decide whether you are going to register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office.  See the section below:  Registering Your Copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office

Registering Your Copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office

How to register.

As part of the ProQuest submission process, authors can choose to register their copyright with the U.S.Copyright Office. We generally suggest that people register their copyrights if they can afford to do so.  

• The cost is $75 if ProQuest registers the copyright for the student.  Many students choose this because of the convenience.
• The cost is $ 45 if the author registers themselves by going to the U.S. Copyright Office website and registers the copyright using the Standard form.

Why register?

According to the U.S. Copyright Office publication Copyright Circular #1 , pg. 7, there are several reasons why authors should register their copyright:

• Registration establishes a public record of the copyright claim.
• Before an infringement suit may be filed in court, registration is necessary for works of U.S. origin.
• If made before or within five years of publication, registration will establish prima facie evidence in court of the validity of the copyright and of the facts stated in the certificate.
• Registration allows the owner of the copyright to record the registration with the U.S. Customs Service for protection against the importation of infringing copies. For additional information, go to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website at https://www.cbp.gov/.

Embargoes of Theses and Dissertations

One of the decisions that the author of a thesis or dissertation must make as they prepare to graduate is whether to delay the release of the thesis or dissertation for a period of time after graduation.  This decision is often a balance between the need to make the work as visible as possible , and the desire to protect the work because the author wants to publish that research in journal articles or books, because of pending patents, or because the research is sensitive.

If an embargo is needed, KU's Embargo Policy for Theses and Dissertations spells out the circumstances under which an embargo may be requested and the process for doing so.

• First, the student must submit the Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) Release Form to the school/College office. Embargo requests need to be approved by the Director of Graduate Studies in the author's department, the Department Chair, or the Committee Chair.  If an embargo is approved, this form will ensure that the thesis or dissertation file is protected from public view.  Keep in mind that the title, abstract, and keywords entered during the ProQuest submission will be visible, even if the file is protected.
• Second, during the online submission process to ProQuest/UMI , in the Publishing Options section, the student must select I want my work to be available in ProQuest as soon as it is published > No, I have patents pending, or another reason why I need to delay access to the full text of my work , then select the embargo term.  If an embargo has been approved, this step will ensure that public view of the work is temporarily restricted in the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database.

Embargoes may be renewed before the expiration date by filling out the Embargo Renewal form for the KU ScholarWorks copy AND , for the ProQuest copy, by contacting ProQuest at [email protected] or by phone at 1-800-521-0600 at least one month before the embargo expires .

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Penn State University Libraries

Copyright and your thesis or dissertation.

• Using Others' Work
• Reusing Your Published Work
• Your Copyright
• Publishing Your Thesis or Dissertation
• Frequently Asked Questions and Resources

Copyright Formalities

In the United States today, copyright protection automatically covers all new copyrightable works, including your dissertation. The moment a copyrightable work is fixed in a tangible medium of expression (e.g., written on a piece of paper or on your hard drive), it is subject to copyright.

In the past, authors had to comply with certain formalities in order to obtain copyright protection. These formalities included registering the work with the US Copyright Office and placing a copyright notice on the work. Copyright law no longer requires that authors comply with these formalities merely to obtain copyright protection. However, registering a work and putting a copyright notice on a work still come with legal benefits, so authors often do these things anyway.

Copyright Notice

Under current US law, you do not have to provide a copyright notice on your work to receive copyright protection. However, if you are making your work publicly available, you may want to.

Putting a copyright notice (the copyright symbol (©), the year of publication, and the name of the copyright holder) on a work tells the rest of the world that the work is protected by copyright. If the copyright holder later sues someone for infringing their copyright in the work, they can point to the notice to show that the defendant is not an “innocent infringer," which can lead to higher damages. A copyright notice also lets others know whom to contact if they would like a license to use the work.

• Copyright Basics: US Copyright Office Circular 1 This PDF publication from the US Copyright Office explains the basics of copyright law, including copyright notice.

Copyright Registration

Under current US law, you do not have to register your work to receive copyright protection. You may want to register it anyway, because copyright registration comes with certain legal benefits. If the work is registered within three months of its publication date or before a particular infringement occurs, the copyright holder can recover statutory damages (monetary awards that need not be connected to actual harm suffered by the copyright holder) and attorney’s fees if they are successful in an infringement suit. Also, registration is required before the author can bring a lawsuit about the use of their work. However, despite these benefits, many works are never registered because registration takes time and money.

Registering a copyright is not difficult. For instructions and forms, visit the US Copyright Office website . If you have any questions regarding copyright registration, the US Copyright Office has a toll-free help line at 1-877-476-0778. You may register a work at any time while it is still in copyright.

Online registration for a single work of which you are the sole author costs $35. In all other cases, the online registration fee is $55. The fee for registering with a paper application is $85.

Registration by ProQuest

The Graduate School requires that doctoral dissertations be submitted to ProQuest . ProQuest will register copyright on behalf of authors, for a fee.

Who Holds Copyright in Penn State Theses and Dissertations

Penn State thesis and dissertation authors are the initial copyright holders for their theses and dissertations. As copyright holders, they have certain rights under copyright law. In the United States today, those rights can be separated and split. The author can give others permission to exercise some or all of those rights. That is called a license. If the author agrees only to give that permission to one entity at a time, the license is exclusive.

An exclusive license that lasts until the end of the copyright term is a transfer of copyright. To be valid, a copyright transfer must be in writing and must be signed by the copyright holder or the copyright holder’s agent. The recipient of a copyright transfer can then license or transfer the copyright.

In the academic context, licenses and transfers of copyright are particularly common in publishing agreements. In many cases, the author transfers all or part of the copyright in her publication to the publisher. Academic authors also use the Creative Commons licenses to increase access to their work, either in advance or as part of a publishing agreement.

Because Penn State permits use of coauthored material in theses and dissertations under certain circumstances, Penn State thesis and dissertation authors sometimes hold copyright in some portions of the thesis or dissertation jointly with coauthors.

Attribution

This guide is based in part on Copyright for Dissertations , a guide from the University of Michigan Library Copyright Office, which is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license .

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• Copyright Basics for Undergraduate Students
• Copyright Basics for Graduate Students
• Copyright Quick Quide
• Information for Authors
• Copyright In the Classroom
• Copyright Review for Graduate Students

Copyright and Your Thesis or Dissertation

Using copyrighted materials, using your own previously published material, registering copyright.

• Keeping Control of Your Copyright
• Seeking Permission
• About the Public Domain
• About Fair Use
• Additional Resources
• Need Additional Assistance
• About this Guide

A copyright is an intangible right granted to you as the author of your thesis or dissertation. You have the sole and exclusive privilege of making copies, publishing or selling your thesis or dissertation. Currently, this protection lasts for your lifetime plus an addition 70 years. These exclusive privileges belong to you unless you have transferred them to someone else via a written agreement or your work is a “work-for-hire.”

Copyright protection automatically exists from the time you place your thesis or dissertation in fixed form. A fixed form can be a digital file such as a word processing document, PDF file, or a printed page. There is no requirement to publish or register your thesis or dissertation to obtain protection under copyright law. The copyright of any work immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work, unless as stated above it is a work-for-hire, or unless ownership has been assigned by written agreement.

Submission of your approved thesis or dissertation results in the publication of the document by Curtis Laws Wilson Library. As such, you grant the University a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to reproduce your thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, in electronic form to be posted in Scholars' Mine, our institutional repository, and made available to the general public at no charge. This does not mean that the University owns the copyright to your work (you do), but the University has the right to reproduce and distribute your work. The University requires this to support the dissemination of intellectual thought and discovery.

Regardless of whether or not you register copyright for your thesis or dissertation, you should include a copyright notice in your thesis or dissertation. Including the notice helps to establish that you are the owner of the work. It also protects you, as the copyright holder, from anyone claiming innocent infringement or unintentional violation of copyright.

Any materials belonging to someone else used in your thesis or dissertation, beyond brief excerpts, may be used only with the written permission of the copyright owner. Publishers of books and journals hold the copyright for all materials they publish. Therefore, even if you are the sole or one of several authors of material in a published book or journal, you must obtain written permission from the copyright holder if you are including this material in your document. Also the use of reproductions or excerpts of other media, such as music, graphic images, or computer software will also require permissions.

Your letter to the copyright holder needs to make clear that you seek written permission to preserve (on microfilm and digitally) and publish (in print and digital form) your thesis or dissertation through ProQuest and that ProQuest may sell, on demand, for scholarly purposes, single copies of your work, which includes the copyright holder's material. Your letter must also seek written permission for the document to be submitted in electronic format to Curtis Laws Wilson Library where it will be placed in our institutional repository, Scholars' Mine, and made available at no charge to the general public  via the Internet.

You are responsible for securing all necessary permissions and paying any permission fees in advance of using copyrighted materials in your work. It is recommended that copies of the written permission you receive be placed in the appendix of your thesis or dissertation.

Some academic programs here at Missouri S&T permit you to include articles or other materials that you have previously published, that have been accepted (or submitted, in press, or under review) for publication, or that have been otherwise presented to the public within the body of your thesis or dissertation. This is referred to as the "Publication Option." In all such instances the following guidelines apply:

• If the material is co-authored, your thesis or dissertation advisor must approve its inclusion in your thesis or dissertation.

If the material is copyrighted (if you are the sole author but the copyright is held by the publisher), you must fulfill the conditions specified above on using copyrighted materials. If you are unsure of the copyright status you should review the copyright transfer agreement you signed with the publisher and  consult with the Scholarly Communications Librarian.   The material, if included in the body of your text, must conform to all formatting guidelines.

You can register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office at the Library of Congress. As mentioned above, copyright registration is not a condition for copyright protection. However, there are advantages to registration if you have a claim of infringement of your copyright. You can register at any time within the life of the copyright, but there are advantages to filing for registration within three months of publication. For more information on registration, consult the website of the U.S. Copyright Office or contact the Scholarly Communications Librarian.

There are two main ways for you to register your copyright:

• You may request ProQuest to file the application for you when you submit your thesis or dissertation. ProQuest charges a fee for this service. The service includes preparing an application in your name, submitting your application fee, depositing the required copy or copies of the manuscript, and mailing you the completed certificate of registration from the Library of Congress.  
• Alternately, you can register your copyright directly at the U.S. Copyright website. There is also a copyright fee for filing copyright directly with the U.S. Copyright Office.
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Thesis / dissertation formatting manual (2024).

• Filing Fees and Student Status
• Submission Process Overview
• Electronic Thesis Submission
• Paper Thesis Submission
• Formatting Overview
• Fonts/Typeface
• Pagination, Margins, Spacing
• Paper Thesis Formatting
• Preliminary Pages Overview
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures (etc.)
• Acknowledgments
• Text and References Overview
• Figures and Illustrations
• Using Your Own Previously Published Materials
• Using Copyrighted Materials by Another Author
• Open Access and Embargoes
• Copyright and Creative Commons
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• Tutorials and Assistance
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Copyright page

The use of copyright notice is the prerogative of the copyright owner and does not require advance permission from, or registration with, the U.S. Copyright Office. The use of such notice is highly recommended , because it informs the public that the work is protected by copyright, identifies the copyright owner, and shows the year of first publication.

Generally speaking:

• You should include a copyright statement for yourself for this manuscript.
• You must list copyright holders ​if any portion of your manuscript has been previously published (by you or by another author). See the using previously published materials overview .
• If a copyright statement is not being included, insert a blank page as a substitute. The UCI Libraries strongly recommends that you include a copyright statement.
• Please read the Copyrighted Materials sections (found in the tabs on the left-hand side of this page) for more information.

The notice must contain the following three elements:

• The symbol © (the letter in a circle), or the word "Copyright"
• The year of publication (i.e., the year in which you are filing your manuscript)
• The name of the copyright owner (i.e., your name as it appears on the title page)

Example: © 2015 John Doe

Copyright page example

Here is an example Copyright Page if the thesis/dissertation author is the only copyright holder listed.

If you need to list other copyright holders for other material included in your manuscript, those should be listed above your copyright for your graduate manuscript. Here is an example of a copyright page section with multiple copyrights listed:

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University Library

Copyright for Graduate Students: Theses and Dissertations

• Public Domain
• Creative Commons Licensing
• Obtaining Copyright Permission
• International Materials
• State and Federal Governmental Materials
• University Policies on Copyright
• Depositing Your Dissertation/Thesis in IDEALS

Copyright Questions?

Copyright law can be difficult and confusing. This webpage is meant to provide you with guidance, but not legal advice.

Should you have further questions, please do not hesitate to ask Sara Benson, the Copyright Librarian, for assistance. Sara can be reached at 217-333-4200 or [email protected]

Scholarly Communication and Publishing

The Fine Print

Copyright law is complicated. This guide is intended to provide you with some guidance on how to refer library users to accurate information. However, this guide is not intended to provide legal advice to you or library users nor should you attempt to provide legal advice to library users.

And, of course, when in doubt, please refer library users to the Copyright Librarian, Sara Benson, at  srbenson @illinois.edu

Dual Copyright Aspects of Theses & Dissertations

When writing a thesis or a dissertation, you have two sets of copyrights you should bear in mind.

• Your own copyright as author of the thesis or dissertation; and
• The copyright owned by others in the material you incorporate into your thesis or dissertation.

This guide will discuss both issues.

Generally, when using others' work, you will either determine that you do not need to obtain written permission to use the work in your thesis or dissertation (either because the work is no longer copyright protected/in the public domain or because you have determined that your use constitutes a fair use) or that you do need to obtain permission from the copyright owner (often the publisher and not the author of the work) to use the work.

You may need to consider copyright agreements concerning your own previously published work as well, as you may have transferred copyright to a journal or publisher. In that instance, you may need to obtain permission to use your own work in your thesis or dissertation.

Finally, you should consider how you want to designate your work here at Illinois. Do you want to make the work as open as possible and deposit it both with the institutional repository (IDEALS) and Proques t? Do you want to embargo your work as you plan to publish it immediately? Do you want to make it available so as to find a publisher? These are decisions you will need to make when you deposit your work with the University and this guide can help you when making those decisions.

• Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis [pdf] Kenneth D. Crews offers a complete guide on how copyright affects your thesis.

Using Your Own Previously Published Work

For your own previously published works, first read the fine print in the publishing agreement. Do you have the right to re-use your own work or did you transfer your copyright to the publisher? If you transferred your copyright, you may need to ask for permission to use your own previously published work! Sound crazy? Well, that's why many publishing agreements today expressly permit scholars to use their own work (even if published) for research and teaching. But, again, read the fine print. 

And, if you are planning to publish parts of your dissertation before you file your paper with the Graduate College, but you have not signed a copyright agreement or publishing agreement just yet, be sure to keep copyright in mind when negotiating with the publisher! Consider asking the publisher to let you add the SPARC Author's Addendum to your agreement. 

What if you no longer have a copy of your publishing agreement? Don't worry, your publisher most certainly has a copy. Just send them a friendly e-mail and ask them if they will send you a copy.  

• SPARC Author Addendum The SPARC Author Addendum is a legal instrument that you can use to modify your copyright transfer agreements with non-open access journal publishers. It allows you to select which individual rights out of the bundle of copyrights you want to keep, such as distributing copies in the course of teaching and research, posting the article on a personal or institutional Web site, or creating derivative works.

Fair Use or Seeking Permission: That is the Question

When using other scholars' work in your dissertation (or even your own work, for that matter) the question arises: do I need to ask for permission to use the work in my writing?

There are generally no truly simple answers to that question, except maybe for quotations. You may generally quote a small portion of another scholar's published work without seeking their permission to do so--this is a classic example of fair use.

When using the work of others, consider the following:

• Is it in the public domain ? If so, no permission is needed to use the work.
• Is it a work produced by the federal government in the course of their duties as government officials ? If so, no permission is needed.
• Is the work licensed with a creative commons license ? If so, no permission is needed to use the work, but you will need to carefully consider the terms of the license and comply with those terms to legally use the work.
• Is your use of the work a fair use ? If so, no permission is needed to use the work, but you should conduct a fair use analysis for each and every source you consider to be a fair use.
• If you've answered no to all of the above questions, then yes, you should seek written permission to use the work in your thesis or dissertation.

Except where otherwise indicated, original content in this guide is licensed under a   Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license . You are free to share, adopt, or adapt the materials. We encourage broad adoption of these materials for teaching and other professional development purposes, and invite you to customize them for your own needs.

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Copyright on Campus: Theses & Dissertations

• Introduction
• Copyright Law Basics
• Public Domain
• Theses & Dissertations
• Author Rights
• Showing Movies in Class and on Campus
• Copyright & Data Management
• Copyright in Special Collections
• Open Education

Publisher Policies

Students often receive mixed messages when it comes to including a published paper in a dissertation, or publishing from the dissertation beyond graduation. Both of these scenarios are common and familiar to publishers, but there might be specific guidelines or requirements such as:

• Be transparent. Include a brief explanation when you submit your publication. More often, journals use plagiarism detection software; letting them know your work is out there and publicly available will help sidestep any questions.
• Include a citation to the published work in your thesis or dissertation, and/or a citation to the thesis/dissertation in the resulting publication.
• Specific rules for formatting.
• Resource: Publisher Policies MIT Libraries has compiled a list of major publishers with links to relevant policies

Reusing Material

Theses and dissertations often use charts, graphs, images, and quotes from other journal articles, books, or websites. When doing this, be aware that most content is protected by copyright, though it's likely fine for you to use these materials if you can do one of the following:

• Use public domain content. If you are including factual data presented in a straightforward way (e.g., a simple bar graph or pie chart showing the results of an experiment), it's very likely the figure does not meet the minimum threshold for creatively and is not protected by copyright.
• Use openly licensed content. Open access journal articles and books, as well as other media labeled with a Creative Commons license, 
• Decide your use is "fair." Fair use is a specific provision within U.S. Copyright Law that allows for limited use of in-copyright material without seeking permission. In general, quotations from the work of others should be no longer than is necessary to support the scholarly point you wish to make. In the case of images, you should be sure that the pictures you reproduce are closely tied to your research goals and are each made the subject of specific scholarly comment. More on fair use .
• If you're not sure about relying on fair use, you can often seek permission. Most of the time, this means navigating to the publisher's website or a journal article page and finding a link to "rights" or "permissions." Many publishers allow graduate students to use content without charge, with the understanding that if you publish your work formally in future, you may need to obtain permission again and pay a fee. It's a good idea to get permission in writing, but even an email is sufficient.

From Dissertation to Publication - FAQ on Your Rights as Author

Who owns the copyright of a thesis or dissertation?

You do! The copyright of a thesis or dissertation belongs to you as the author. Under the U.S. Copyright Act, works are automatically copyrighted at the moment they are fixed in a tangible form, including residing on your computer's hard drive. You continue to own that copyright until you transfer it to another party.  A transfer of copyright must be in writing.  If parts of a work have already been published and copyright in those other works was transferred to someone else (e.g. a publisher), copyright of those parts remains with whom it was transferred to.

Who owns copyright in work produced as part of a team or in a lab?

Whenever a group undertakes a project or research, it is best to have a discussion up front, including the faculty advisor or chair, to clarify how copyright, patents and other intellectual property will be managed and who will retain and manage rights for all portions of the project. Be sure to consider not only publications arising from the project, but also data sets, software, websites, user interfaces, specifications, and any other outputs. It is always best to make sure that faculty make clear to graduate students and others working for them how research outputs will be owned or used in order to avoid confusion. In circumstances where grant funds or University funding is significantly invested in the project or research, other ownership interests may be at play, which should be discussed and understood.

Do I need to register my copyright?

You do not need to register with the Copyright Office in order to enjoy copyright protection. Such protection is automatic, coming into effect at the moment a work is fixed in a tangible form. However, registration has certain advantages.  First, if your work is registered you have strong evidence that you are the author of the work and the owner of its copyright. Also, registration is necessary to enforce a copyright against an infringer or plagiarist. For full detail, read the U.S. Copyright Office circular " Copyright Basics ". The benefits of registration are outlined on Page 7.

Registration can be completed online directly (for a fee of $45) through the Copyright Office website  or through ProQuest (for a fee of $55) who will register the copyright for you and in your name.

Can I use previously published articles of my own in my work?

It depends. You will need to review the agreement you signed with the publisher of our previously published article. Most agreements require you to transfer your copyright to the publisher. If this is the case, you must request permission from the publisher to "reprint" the article as a chapter in your dissertation. However, some agreements specify that you retain the right to reprint the article in your dissertation. The chart below details several publishers' policies with respect to reusing your own previously published work in a thesis or dissertation; however, you should always review the terms of any agreement you signed.

Why do I have two publishing agreements to review and sign, and what do I need to understand about them?

University of Florida dissertations are distributed by both ProQuest/UMI and the UF Libraries. Both will make your work available and preserve it for the future (ProQuest through its Dissertations and Theses database and print sales if you choose to allow that, and the UF Libraries through its institutional repository, the IR@UF ). In return for those services, both ProQuest and the UF Libraries require you to certify that the work is your own and that you are not infringing the rights of others. These agreements also provide a mechanism for all parties to recognize your rights as an author.  

Please note, by signing these agreements you still retain copyright, including the right to publish your work; the licenses you give to ProQuest/UMI and to the UF Libraries does not preclude publishing any part of your dissertation in another form or prevent you from transferring your copyright to some other party at a later date. A license is a permission you give to others to use your work in ways that would otherwise not be permitted by copyright law; they are not a transfer of your copyright.

The agreement with UF Libraries requires that you give a license to UF to put your dissertation in the IR@UF and distribute it in a way that allows other scholars to read it and use it for non-commercial purposes, as long as they do not make changes to your work and always give you credit. This license is designed to enable scholarship and to protect you from plagiarism. The agreement with ProQuest/UMI  grants ProQuest the non-exclusive right to reproduce and disseminate your work according to the conditions you elect in the agreement, including whether to make your work available after a specified embargo period and whether to make it available open access. 

Both publishing agreements allow students to elect to make their dissertations available immediately or after a specific limited period of time known as an embargo. An embargo may be appropriate and desired when a student wants to allow time to explore publishing part of it in other forms, if the dissertation contains material for which a patent might be sought, or if it includes other sensitive or confidential information.

What is open access, and how does it apply to my thesis or dissertation?

Articles, books, theses and dissertations are said to be "open access" when they are "digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions." By making publications open access, the widest sharing of ideas and research results is made possible, which is generally done either by publishing in open access journals or depositing them in open access repositories such as PubMed Central, arXiv, or the IR@UF. University of Florida policy is for all new dissertations to be available open access through the IR@UF, either immediately or after an embargo period. 

Will journal or book publishers consider publishing my work if it is based on an open access thesis or dissertation?

Recent surveys  show that a majority of journal editors and university presses would accept submissions of articles and book manuscripts that were based upon theses or dissertations, even if they are available in an open access repository. This is in part because most publishers consider theses and dissertations to be "student work" that will require substantial editing and revision before being published in article or book form. The chart below summarizes the policies of some publishers regarding the publication of new works from a thesis or dissertation.

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• Dissertation Copyright
• Sample Dissertation Title Page
• ETD Administrator
• Formatting FAQs
• Dissertation Templates
• Dissertation Embargo Guidelines

Copyrighting your Dissertation

In the United States, you automatically own the copyright in your original creative authorship, such as your dissertation, once it is fixed in a tangible form ( i.e. , written down or recorded). United States law does not require you to include a copyright notice on your dissertation or to  formally register  with the U.S. Copyright Office in order to secure copyright protection over your work. However, there are some benefits to including a copyright notice and registering your work. See the  Copyright Guide  for more information or to schedule a consultation.

Including a Copyright Page in your Dissertation

Including a copyright page in your dissertation is optional but recommended. For details on how to format the copyright page, consult the  PhD Dissertation Formatting Guide  and the  PhD Dissertation Formatting Checklist .

Dissertations Based on Joint Work

• For dissertations based on joint work with other researchers, a unique and separate dissertation must be presented by each degree candidate. You must include a concise account of your unique contribution to the joint work, and remainder of the dissertation must be authored solely by you. Authorship of an entire dissertation by more than one degree candidate is not allowed.

Using Your Own Previously Published Material in Your Dissertation

University of Pennsylvania  policy  allows you to include your own previously published work or articles submitted for publication as part of the dissertation with the following conditions:

• You must obtain approval of the dissertation committee and Graduate Group Chairperson.
• You must obtain written permission from the copyright owner, which may be the journal, publisher, and/or any co-authors, unless you are the sole copyright holder (depends on your publishing agreement).
• You must upload any permission letters in ETD Administrator as an  Administrative Document  titled “Permission Letter – Do Not Publish.”
• Your dissertation must be formatted as a single document with consistent formatting and styles throughout. If you are using multiple previously published articles, make sure to make the formatting consistent with the rest of the document.

When using previously published or in press work, you must disclose this information in your dissertation in the following format :

• Under the Chapter title, list the full citation for the previously published/in-press article in the citation style used in your Bibliography.
• If it is a jointly authored article, describe your contribution to the work in a separate sentence.

Using Other Copyrighted Material in Your Dissertation

If you use third party copyrighted material (images, quotations, datasets, figures), you are responsible for re-use of that material (see the  Policy on Unauthorized Copying of Copyrighted Media ). In many cases, you may be able to use copyrighted material under the “ fair use ” provision of U.S. copyright law. Consult the  PhD Dissertation Formatting Guide  and the  PhD Dissertation Formatting Checklist  for information on how to submit written permission from a copyright holder. Typically, you will need to request a permission letter and upload the letter as an  Administrative Document  in  ETD Administrator .

If you still have questions regarding copyright and “fair use” refer to the  Penn Libraries Copyright Guide  or email  [email protected]  for further support.

Patent and Intellectual Property

Any inventions that you make as part of your research for your degree and disclosed as part of your dissertation, and any patent or other intellectual property rights arising therefrom, are governed by the policies of the University of Pennsylvania, including the  Patent and Tangible Research Property Policies and Procedures  and  Policy Relating to Copyrights and Commitment of Effort for Faculty.  For more information, please contact the  Penn Center for Innovation .

There are strict deadlines under U.S. and international law regarding the timing for filing patent applications and the public availability of your dissertation. Contact the  Penn Center for Innovation  to discuss whether there might be a patentable invention disclosed in your dissertation prior to deposit of your dissertation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do i have copyright over my dissertation .

Yes. According to US Copyright law, you have copyright immediately and automatically over any of your new, original works in a “fixed, tangible form” ( i.e. , written down, recorded, etc.). You do not need to register or to include a copyright symbol © or any other formal marks to secure your copyright, though there are some benefits to doing so. See the  Copyright Guide  for more information or email  [email protected]  for further support.

Should I register the copyright in my dissertation with the U.S. Copyright Office? 

It depends on what you want to do with your dissertation. There are  some benefits to registering the copyright  in your dissertation depending on your future goals. However, keep in mind that you automatically have copyright over your dissertation without formally registering. To learn more about formally registering the copyright in your dissertation, see the  Copyright Guide  or schedule a consultation.  

Should I pay ProQuest to register my copyright?

Note that you already have copyright over your dissertation, but if you would like to  formally register your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office , you can pay ProQuest to do it for you (you will have the option in ETD Administrator). For less cost, you can register it yourself on the  copyright.gov  web page. Information on registering your copyright is available in the  Copyright Guide . Please keep in mind that if portions of your dissertation are comprised of previously published co-authored material,  you cannot  register your copyright through ProQuest. 

What is a Creative Commons license?

A copyright license grants permission for someone else to use your copyrighted work.  A  Creative Commons  license is one type of copyright license. It works hand in hand with your copyright. It is not an independent type of copyright. By using a Creative Commons license you are telling the world under what circumstances they are able to use your work without asking your permission each and every time.  You can only add a Creative Commons license to your work if you are the copyright holder, and have not transferred your rights to someone else (like a publisher).

You may choose to apply a Creative Commons license to your dissertation by adding it to the copyright notice page; see the  PhD Dissertation Formatting Guide  for an example. V isit the  Creative Commons website  to review all the licenses in full detail and select one that fits your needs. 

Refer to the  Services for Authors Guide  or  schedule a consultation  to learn more about using a Creative Commons license on your dissertation.

I want to use copyrighted materials in my dissertation. Is that okay?

It depends. If the materials you wish to incorporate into your dissertation are copyrighted, you will need to do a  fair use analysis  for each item you use to determine if you can proceed without getting permission. If you do not feel that you can make a good “fair use” case, you will need to  request permission  from the copyright holder and provide all permission letters as  Administrative Documents  in ETD Administrator. Just because you are using the work for educational purposes does not automatically mean that your work is “fair use” or that you have permission to use the work.  Request a consultation  to learn more about fair use and other copyright considerations.

I want to use my own previously published materials in my dissertation. Is that okay?

It depends. If the materials you may wish to incorporate into your dissertation are published in a journal or other publication, you may need to seek permission from the journal, publisher, or any co-authors. These permission letters must be uploaded as supplementary material in ETD Administrator before the deposit date. Please refer to your publication agreement for further information.

Additionally, using previously published materials as part of your dissertation requires approval of the dissertation committee and Graduate Group Chairperson.

I would like to know more about publishing, copyright, open access, and other/related issues. How can I find out more?

The Penn Libraries offers a range of workshops and presentations on these topics (and other digital skills related topics)  throughout the year . Groups can request a number of these workshops for classes or other group settings. For personal discussions about copyright, fair use, Creative Commons, scholarly publishing, and other related topics, please  contact your subject librarian  for support and further referrals. For more general information about these and related topics, review the  Penn Libraries’ guides  by keyword or subject.

Guide to CaltechTHESIS

• Caltech Theses
• Deadlines and Letters of Completion
• Submission Information
• Grad Office Regulations and Required Forms
• Templates and Formatting Information
• Thesis Updates and Corrections
• CaltechDATA for Supplementary Material
• Thesis Embargo Policies and Forms

Copyright Ownership of your Thesis

Including your own published material in your thesis, including someone else's material in your thesis, licensing agreements for a caltech thesis, i want to write a book based on my thesis, "someone wants to publish my thesis".

• Publishers' Policies on Publications in Theses
• Printing & Binding
• Senior Thesis Deposits
• 3MT: Caltech's Three Minute Thesis Competition This link opens in a new window

Author Services and Thesis Librarian

Library Staff

Who owns the copyright to my thesis?

As the author, you own the copyright to your thesis.  You are therefore in general free to reuse its contents in any way you choose.  The only thing that might prevent you is if you have already signed over copyright to one of your chapters to a third party, say a publisher of the article you are including in your thesis. 

Should I register for copyright?

The most important thing to understand about your thesis is that as the author, you own the copyright to your thesis . As a Caltech student, you are free to seek the advice of qualified attorneys in Caltech's Office of the General Counsel to ask for help in understanding your Intellectual Property rights. Copyright law involves many complex issues that are relevant to you as a graduate student, both in protecting your own work and in referencing the work of others. This page does not in any way substitute for the legal advice of qualified attorneys.

Copyright protection automatically exists from the time the work is created in fixed form (including electronic) and the copyright immediately becomes the property of the author. Registration with the United States Copyright Office is not required to secure copyright, but it is a legal formality to place on public record the basic facts of a particular copyright. Although not a condition of copyright protection itself, registering the copyright is ordinarily necessary before any infringement suits can be filed in court.

Register your thesis copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office

• You may always register your work through the U.S. Copyright Office's Registration Portal .
• You will need to set up an account with their Electronic Copyright Office (eCO) Registration System .

Additional reading

Guidelines for reusing your own publications.

Caltech allows you to include your own published articles as chapters in your thesis.  You must, however observe the following guidelines:

• You must be one of the listed authors.
• You must have permission from the publisher to reuse the article as a thesis chapter.
• You must list the publication in your Published Content and Contributions page(s) of your thesis.
• The thesis chapter should be presented as a thesis chapter. Do not use the publisher's layout. Use a copy of the Accepted pre-formatted version of the article if you have it.
• The bibliography style in the article may need to be re-formatted to match the style throughout the thesis.  Use an online citation generator to reformat your bibliography(ies).

Inclusion of published content

• Check for copyright restrictions in our Publishers Policies section
• If necessary, contact the copyright owners (usually publishers) by email for permission to include the published material in your thesis. Save the email responses and upload them as withheld documents into your CaltechTHESIS record.
• Include a bibliography of all published, or accepted-for-publication, material included in the thesis. Include the DOI URLs as part of the citations whenever possible.
• If your thesis includes a chapter that has been submitted or accepted for publication, note that information at the end of the citation for the article as presented to the publisher. You can add [Submitted] or [Accepted] as appropriate. We do not expect journal titles as part of the citation for submitted papers. If you do not have a DOI assigned yet by the publisher, you may also omit that information.
• They usually have a specific citation format they want you to follow.  Check the publisher's website.
• The citation is generally added at the bottom of the first page of the chapter included in the thesis.
• Add the DOI URL to the Related URLS field in the Description tab of your CaltechTHESIS record.  Identify the link's relation to your thesis in the Description field (for example: "Article adapted for ch. 2").

Guidelines for borrowing someone else's material for my thesis

Do contact the Library for help in navigating these questions! As in all things legal, this is not legally binding information.  Please do not hesitate to seek the advice of qualified attorneys in Caltech's Office of the General Counsel.

• Simple quotes do not fall into this category.  You must still add the quote into your thesis as it appears in the original text, add quotation marks, and cite the source properly.
• The rule of thumb is that if you are not the author/creator for the material, then you should ask for permission if you want to borrow it. Save their responses to upload as Copyright Permissions in your CaltechTHESIS record.
• Online articles: Most U.S. publishers use the Copyright Clearance Center's RightsLink program to manage permissions for them. You will likely be able to fill out an online permissions form directly from the online article to request permission.
• Paper articles: You may need to contact the publisher directly. Contact the Library for help!
• Books: You may need to contact the publisher directly. Contact the Library for help!
• If the item is unpublished, find out, if at al possible, who owns (author or creator) the item. Ask them directly for permission.
• Images are very tricky.  It is sometimes very hard to determine who actually owns the copyright, and who to contact for permission to reuse the image. Copyright information may not be provided, and you cannot find out who owns the image.
• If copyright information on an image has been established, then definitely ask for permission from the copyright owner. Be forewarned that many owners will charge for reuse of their material.
• You can use your camera to take your own pictures.
• You can derive your own image from someone else's, as long as you put in the effort to make it something new and unique enough to call it your own.

CaltechTHESIS Usage License

• CaltechTHESIS has a default usage license publicly viewable in a thesis record.  It states that "No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided."
• Any file attached to a thesis record also provides licensing terms specific to each file. In addition to the default license, the thesis author can choose from the various Creative Commons licenses , including for software .

What if I want to write a book related to my thesis?

• We realize that some students prepare books on topics related to their theses. In general, it appears to be the case that electronic release of early versions of a book leads to greater sales of such books. Indeed, having an electronic work made available on the Internet, and telling a publisher that there have been a large number of electronic accesses to that work, may help you land a book contract.
• Usually, books that relate to theses turn out to be significantly changed as part of the editorial process. This makes it likely that those interested in your work will buy your book when it comes out, even if they have reviewed your thesis.
• However, since book publishers vary widely in their policies, it may be wise to share Caltech's Doctoral Thesis Dissemination Policy with publishers to which you are likely to submit your work.

You have just received a letter or an email from a publisher offering to publish your thesis for you.  What now?

We would caution you to look carefully at such solicitations. The companies that have contacted you, unsolicited, may be a vanity press or belong to a group of questionable and highly suspect publishers. 

Vanity Presses

Vanity press publishers do not ask you to pay them up front.  They are in essence a a print-on-demand publisher. The most well-known "publishers", all based in Europe, are:

• Lambert Academic Publishing
• Scholars' Press
• VDM Publishing

It is good to know that Lambert Academic Publishing, for example, uses the same phrases in their email solicitations as "Scholars' Press", which shares the same address as VDM Publishing.

What You Need to Know:

• Most thesis and dissertation authors seek to publish at least part of their thesis or dissertation -- usually substantially re-worked from the strict thesis/dissertation format -- in a peer reviewed journal (article length) or by a university press, learned society, or well established commercial publisher (book length).  These vanity publishers might not impress a tenure review board, especially if you are planning a career in academia.  I suggest you do a simple search engine search (google, bing, yahoo) and draw your own conclusions.
• This article is highly recommended reading, and explains matters pretty well: https://www.universityaffairs.ca/publishing-your-thesis-online.aspx. Another source of information is this article in the Chronicle of Higher Education: https://chronicle.com/forums/index.php?topic=45997.15
• If you're still not certain, your thesis advisor is an excellent resource for more specific advice. Caltech's Office of the General Counsel is another great resource, as they deal regularly with Intellectual Property matters.
• << Previous: Thesis Embargo Policies and Forms
• Next: Publishers' Policies on Publications in Theses >>
• Last Updated: Aug 29, 2024 10:27 AM
• URL: https://library.caltech.edu/theses

Copyright Concerns of Graduate Researchers

Incorporating copyrighted content in theses/dissertations.

You should assume that anything produced by someone other than yourself is protected by copyright unless you determine otherwise (e.g. determine that the term of copyright protection has expired and the work is in the public domain). The types of works protected by copyright include books, articles, newspapers, photographs, music, movies, software, and even things you find on the internet.

Use of works protected by copyright in your dissertation or thesis will need either permission or a fair use justification. Fair use is an exception to the copyright holder’s exclusive rights. In order to use copyrighted works under a claim of fair use, the following factors must be weighed: (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for non-profit educational purposes; (2) the nature of the copyrighted work; (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

Fair use provides an indispensable opportunity for scholarship, since so much of research involves building upon the insights of others. Quotations from other writers are a regular part of most scholarship and are generally consider a classic example of fair use. There is no exact rule about how much one may quote and remain within the boundaries of fair use. Various guidelines that offer specific numbers of words or lines are advisory and do not have the force of law . In general, quotations from the work of others should be no longer than is necessary to support the scholarly point you wish to make. When you are subjecting the quoted material to scholarly criticism or comment, you have more leeway for fair use than in many other situations, but you should be sure that you do not use more of someone else’s work than is necessary for the argument that you are making in your own thesis/dissertation.

In the case of images, you should be sure that the pictures you reproduce are closely tied to your research goals and are each made the subject of specific scholarly comment. If you use a large number of copyright-protected images by a single artist, or in some other way threaten to supersede the market for the original works, it is wise to seek permission. If you have flexibility in the final selection of your images, search for images that are 1) in the public domain, or 2) made available for reuse via a Creative Commons license. Such images can be incorporated into your dissertation without permission or concern for fair use.

Finally, remember to always provide proper attribution to the sources of the works you incorporate into your thesis or dissertation. Proper attribution is absolutely required; that’s a part of academic integrity and good scholarship. Copyright permission, if necessary, is an entirely separate matter and does not obviate the need for attribution.

Additional Resources : Copyright information for theses and dissertations from the Duke Graduate School Copyright information for theses and dissertations from ProQuest Understanding and Negotiating Book Publication Contracts from the Authors Alliance Columbia University Advisory Office – “ Permissions “ ProQuest/Kenny Crews – “ Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis: Ownership, Fair Use, and Your Rights and Responsibilities “ University of Michigan – “ A Graduate Student’s Guide to Copyright: Open Access, Fair Use, and Permissions “

From Dissertation to Publication – FAQ on Your Rights as Author

Who owns the copyright of a thesis or dissertation?

You do! The copyright of a thesis or dissertation belongs to you as the author. Under the U.S. Copyright Act, works are automatically copyrighted at the moment they are fixed in a tangible form, including residing on your computer’s hard drive. You continue to own that copyright until you transfer it to another party.  A transfer of copyright must be in writing.  If parts of a work have already been published and copyright in those other works was transferred to someone else (e.g. a publisher), copyright of those parts remains with whom it was transferred to.

Who owns copyright in work produced as part of a team or in a lab?

Whenever a group undertakes a project or research, it is best to have a discussion up front, including the faculty advisor or chair, to clarify how copyright, patents and other intellectual property will be managed and who will retain and manage rights for all portions of the project. Be sure to consider not only publications arising from the project, but also data sets, software, websites, user interfaces, specifications, and any other outputs. It is always best to make sure that faculty make clear to graduate students and others working for them how research outputs will be owned or used in order to avoid confusion. In circumstances where grant funds or University funding is significantly invested in the project or research, other ownership interests may be at play, which should be discussed and understood.

Do I need to register my copyright?

You do not need to register with the Copyright Office in order to enjoy copyright protection. Such protection is automatic, coming into effect at the moment a work is fixed in a tangible form. However, registration has certain advantages.  First, if your work is registered you have strong evidence that you are the author of the work and the owner of its copyright. Also, registration is necessary to enforce a copyright against an infringer or plagiarist. For full detail, read the U.S. Copyright Office circular “ Copyright Basics “. The benefits of registration are outlined on Page 7.

Registration can be completed online directly (for a fee of $35) through the Copyright Office website  or through ProQuest (for a fee of $55) who will register the copyright for you and in your name.

Can I use previously published articles of my own in my work?

It depends. You will need to review the agreement you signed with the publisher of our previously published article. Most agreements require you to transfer your copyright to the publisher. If this is the case, you must request permission from the publisher to “reprint” the article as a chapter in your dissertation. However, some agreements specify that you retain the right to reprint the article in your dissertation. The chart below details several publishers’ policies with respect to reusing your own previously published work in a thesis or dissertation; however, you should always review the terms of any agreement you signed.

What is open access, and how does it apply to my thesis or dissertation?

Articles, books, theses and dissertations are said to be “open access” when they are “digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.” By making publications open access, the widest sharing of ideas and research results is made possible, which is generally done either by publishing in open access journals or depositing them in open access repositories such as PubMed Central, arXiv, or DukeSpace . Duke graduate school policy is for all new dissertations to be available open access through DukeSpace, either immediately or after an embargo period. More information about how to deposit can be found on the Duke ScholarWorks and Graduate School sites.

Will journal or book publishers consider publishing my work if it is based on an open access thesis or dissertation?

Recent surveys  show that a majority of journal editors and university presses would accept submissions of articles and book manuscripts that were based upon theses or dissertations, even if they are available in an open access repository. This is in part because most publishers consider theses and dissertations to be “student work” that will require substantial editing and revision before being published in article or book form. The chart below summarizes the policies of some publishers regarding the publication of new works from a thesis or dissertation.

Publisher Policies on Reuse of Articles in Dissertations and Publication of Content within Dissertations

The table below summarizes selected publisher policies on student reuse of their own previously published works as well as the policies on publishing portions of a thesis or dissertation as an article. It was developed by University of Florida Libraries based on their research and correspondence with various publishers.

Content on this page was adapted from the University of Florida Libraries and re-used here under the CC-BY-NC-SA license asserted on that page.

• Library Catalogue

Copyright and your thesis

On this page, frequently asked questions, copyright basics, copyright contacts, copyright tools and forms, copyright workshop videos, slides and handouts, sfu copyright resources.

Start here for FAQs and resources about using copyright protected materials in your thesis, dissertation or other graduate project.

Please see the Research Commons for assistance with all other aspects of your thesis, and for  thesis workshops , which include a copyright component.

Contact the Copyright Office ( [email protected] ) with any questions, or to request an in-person or email consultation or thesis copyright review.

Some text derived from  University of Waterloo  (licensed under  CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 ) and  University of Saskatchewan  (licensed under  CC BY-NC-SA 2.5 ) copyright FAQs.

See Copyright basics FAQs for information on how copyright works in Canada and at SFU and general information about the Canadian  Copyright Act .

It all depends on the wording of the Author/Publisher Agreement, sometimes called a Copyright Transfer Agreement, that you signed with the publisher of your work. Often times these agreements transfer most copyright in your work to the publisher, leaving you with very few rights to the work. If your Author/Publisher Agreement does not allow for you to re-publish the material in your thesis, you will need to contact the publisher and ask them for permission to use the work.

If you are planning on submitting work to be published, and you already know that you will want to later include this material in your thesis, try to ensure that you get wording in the Author/Publisher Agreement that allows you to include the material in your thesis. The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) provides an author addendum and information about negotiating your publishing agreement here .

No. Citing the source of a work you use is good academic practice and helps you avoid plagiarism, but citation alone does not mean you are permitted to copy the work.

In order to legally copy a copyright-protected work for use in teaching materials, assignments, or theses/dissertations, your use must be permitted by one of the following:

• explicit permission from the copyright owner;
• use of an "insubstantial" amount, e.g., a typical short quote of a few sentences;
• a users' rights exception in the  Copyright Act , such as fair dealing ;
• the terms of a license , like those the SFU Library has for ejournals and ebooks [note: these licenses typically don't permit use in a thesis/dissertation]; or
• the terms of an open license, such as a Creative Commons license , applied to the work by its copyright owner.

If the thesis includes reproductions of copyright protected images, including but not limited to, figures, drawings, paintings, photographs, logos, maps, diagrams, tables  or charts, the author of the thesis must in some cases obtain written authorization from the copyright holder in order to reproduce this material for inclusion in the thesis. If fair dealing applies, the material is usable under a Creative Commons or similar license or the material is not protected by copyright , permission may not be necessary, but documentation of the exception may be required. Contact the Copyright Office ( [email protected] ) for more information.

The request for permission from the copyright holder must state that the thesis will be available in full-text format on the internet for reference, study and / or copying and that the electronic version of the thesis will be accessible through Summit, the SFU Digital Research Repository and through the Library’s online catalogue.

For theses and dissertations (but not projects or extended essays) the letter also needs to state that Library and Archives Canada will be granted a non-exclusive license to reproduce, loan, or distribute single copies of the thesis by any means and in any form or format.

A template letter prepared by the Copyright Officer is available for you to modify and use when requesting permissions.

Data and factual information (e.g., rainfall or temperature measurements, mortality rates, population numbers, currency values, chemical structures, historical facts and dates, the number of Twitter followers someone has) are not protected by copyright. Additionally, simple and typical visualizations such as line graphs and tables, or the bar chart shown below, are often not creative enough to be eligible for copyright protection. These types of material may be able to be copied and used without permission.

However, some types of research products that might be used in a similar way to data (e.g., photographs, audiovisual recordings, detailed diagrams and charts, collections of text mined from websites or publications) are most likely protected by copyright.

If you are using someone else's data in your teaching or research, you will need to consider its copyright status, and ensure that you have the right or permission to copy and share it. Remember that fair dealing and other rights may apply.

If you are generating or compiling data in your research, any copyright in these materials may belong to you, another member of your research team, or an external third party. If your data incorporates works created by others, you will need to consider the copyright status before sharing or making it public, unless your use of the work falls under fair dealing or a similar provision. If you are depositing to a research data repository, such as FRDR, you should ensure you have the right, or permission, from any copyright owners, to deposit copyright-protected material (more information about copyright considerations for data deposits can be found on this page ).

Any questions about data and copyright can be directed the SFU Copyright Office at [email protected] .

Image credit: Chart generated at vancouver.weatherstats.ca

Not usually. Generally, you should follow the style guide recommended by your instructor or used in your discipline to identify all material you did not create, in any medium. Your readers will assume that you have adhered to any applicable copyright laws and policies.

However, there are circumstances in which you may be requested or required to include certain information in a citation. Creative Commons licenses require that you indicate which license applies, and link to the license details if possible . An individual license or permission from a creator or publisher may also require that you include certain information. In these cases you should fit this information into your discipline's style guide if possible. You can ask a librarian for assistance with citations.

Copyright does not last forever - it does expire. When the term of copyright expires, the work is said to come into the "public domain" and is then available for anyone to use and copy without permission or payment. In Canada, copyright protection generally lasts for the life of the creator plus 70 years past their death (though some specific types of works such as sound recordings may have different terms). However, due to the term recently changing from 50 years to 70 years, all works by creators who died in 1971 or earlier are now in the public domain; works by creators who died in 1972 or later, including those still living now, will be protected for their life plus 70 years.

However, content in which copyright has expired may be republished or re-released with additional material. For example, although Shakespeare's plays are not protected by copyright, many of the published editions of his plays contain added original materials (such as footnotes, prefaces etc.). There is a separate copyright in the added original material, based on the life of its creator, but the underlying text of the original work is still in the public domain.

Works can also be in the public domain because the copyright owner has given copyright in the work to the public. Some copyright owners have made clear declarations that uses of their copyright works may be made without permission or payment. Such a declaration may be found on the work itself or the website where it is found. The Reproduction of Federal Law Order , for example, permits anyone, without charge or request for permission, to reproduce Canadian laws and decisions of federally constituted courts and administrative tribunals in Canada. However, restrictions can be placed on the uses that can be made of works and, in this case, you must be sure to use the material accordingly. 

Don’t assume that everything you find on the Internet is in the public domain just because it is publicly available. Most of the material you find online is protected by copyright; however, you may be able to use it for educational purposes because fair dealing or other Copyright Act exceptions cover many uses related to teaching. See the FAQs under Instructors – Using copyright protected material from the Internet for further information about using material found on websites.

For more information about duration of copyright protection in Canada see the Government of Canada’s About Copyright page and the Canadian Public Domain Flowchart  by the Copyright Office at the University of Alberta (2020), licensed CC BY .

Yes, all government documents created in Canada are protected by copyright. Federal, territorial and provincial government documents are protected by Crown copyright and the term of Crown copyright is 50 years after the date of publication.

Municipal government documents are not covered by Crown copyright, but instead fall under the normal copyright term of life of the creator plus 70 years. Check the website of the municipal government whose documents you wish to reproduce to see if they allow for reproduction for educational, non-commercial or research purposes.

For further information on the use of federal government documents that are under Crown copyright see the federal  Crown Copyright Request page.

For further information about the use of BC government documents that are under Crown copyright see the provincial  Copyright page.

Creative Commons is a non-profit organization that has developed a suite of licenses that authors and other creators can apply to their works to permit sharing and distribution. Applying a Creative Commons (CC) license to your written, artistic, musical or multimedia work means that you retain ownership of copyright but you permit certain uses of your work without the user needing to contact you for permission each time. You also waive your moral rights, to the extent required for users to use your works according to the applied license. Please note that users of copyright protected works (including those under CC licenses) have certain rights in Canada’s Copyright Act ; these rights will supersede the terms of a CC license where applicable.

You must be the copyright holder of the work and any other works contained within it (such as photographs, diagrams, articles, video clips, etc.), or have license or permission to include these works, in order to apply a CC license. Once you make your work available under a specific CC license, you cannot revoke or change the license associated with that specific work (though of course you may stop distributing the material).

There are six different CC licenses , each with various parameters and requirements, ranging from extremely open and permissive to slightly less so. All CC licenses will permit typical teaching uses such as displaying in the classroom, distributing to students or posting in Canvas. These licenses are described below.

The most open of Creative Commons licenses, this option permits others to copy, distribute, adapt and otherwise use your work in any way without contacting your for permission. However, they are required to credit you in any use they make of your work.

This license permits others to copy, distribute, adapt and otherwise use your work in any way without contacting you for permission. However, they are required to credit you in any use they make of your work, and also to license any derivative work (e.g. an adapted version) under the same license.

This license permits others to copy and distribute your work without contacting you for permission. However, they are required to credit you on the copies they make and they are not permitted to change your work in any way.

This license permits others to copy, distribute, adapt and otherwise use your work without contacting you for permission. However, they are required to credit you in any use they make of your work and they are not permitted to use the work for commercial purposes. Non-commercial purposes are defined by Creative Commons as those “not primarily intended or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation.”

This license permits others to copy, distribute, adapt and otherwise use your work without contacting you for permission. However, they must credit you in any use they make of the work; they are not permitted to use the work for commercial purposes; and they must license any derivative work (e.g. an adapted version) under the same license. Non-commercial purposes are defined by Creative Commons as those “not primarily intended or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation.”

This license permits others to copy and distribute your work without contacting you for permission. However, they must credit you on any copies they make; they are not permitted to use the work for commercial purposes; and they are not permitted to change your work in any way. Non-commercial purposes are defined by Creative Commons as those “not primarily intended or directed towards commercial advantage or monetary compensation.”

If your use is not permitted by a license, or one of the exceptions in the Copyright Act , you will need to ask for permission. The permission must come from the copyright owner so the first step is to identify who the copyright owner is and whether there is an organization that represents the owner. Usually you will be able to identify the owner somewhere on the work by looking for the copyright symbol ©, which should have the copyright owner’s name next to it. You will often find this at the beginning of a book, at the side or caption of a photograph or at the bottom of a webpage . For published works, such as books and journal articles, the publisher or journal is usually the best place to start - they likely own copyright, or they can direct you to the correct contact.

If the copyright owner is easily identifiable and locatable , simply email or write to them, explaining how and why you want to use the work and requesting permission. The permission should be in writing so that there is evidence of what was agreed to between you and the copyright owner. You should also keep a record of who gave the permission, what was permitted, the date, and how to contact the person who gave the permission. Leave plenty of time for this process, since you can't control how quickly the copyright owner might respond.

There are a number of copyright collectives which can give you permission (in the form of a license) on behalf of the copyright owner to use their work. So, for example, if you want to use music and your use does not fall within any of the Copyright Act ’s exceptions, you may be able to obtain permission from copyright collectives such as SOCAN , Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency (CMRRA) or Re:Sound that administer copyright in music. 

Remember that copyright owners have the right to say no, charge a fee or impose conditions on the use of their work.

Contact the Copyright Office ( [email protected] ) with any questions you might have about obtaining copyright permissions.

Yes. However, when submitting your thesis, you will be required to grant a partial copyright license allowing the University Library to post your thesis in Summit, the University’s digital research repository, and allowing Library and Archives Canada to make your thesis available on the Internet and in searchable databases. These license clearly stipulates that you own the copyright to your thesis, but that you have allowed "non-exclusive" use of your thesis by the University Library and by Library and Archives Canada.

You likely don't need to worry. In fact, your thesis or dissertation (and other scholarship) being openly available can increase readership and citation rates, among other benefits .

Here are some concerns you may have heard, and some evidence for why they are mostly unfounded.

Plagiarism: What if someone takes credit for my work?

The fact that your publicly-available thesis or dissertation might be copied also means that it is easy to find in order to compare texts and check for plagiarism. A work being openly available as soon as possible - and clearly dated and time-stamped - deters plagiarism by providing proof of the earlier appearance of one work compared to another similar work (see Suber 2012 ; Cirasella and Thistlethwaite 2017 ).

Predatory publishers: What if someone publishes my thesis in a questionable journal?

We have not encountered any data or anecdotal evidence to justify a concern about predatory publishers taking publicly-available theses or dissertations and publishing them without the author's consent. SFU grad students own copyright in their theses and dissertations; it would be an illegal act of copyright infringement for a publisher to publish one without the author's permission. If you have been contacted by a publisher about publishing your thesis or dissertation, the Library provides information and tools for assessing a publisher or journal .

Ability to publish: Will a publisher reject my manuscript because my dissertation is already available?

A number of surveys of publishers with offices in North America and the UK have found that only a small percentage of publishers across disciplines would outright reject a manuscript based on a thesis or dissertation (see Gilliam and Daoutis 2019 ; Ramirez et al 2013 ; Ramirez et al 2014 ). In most cases an article, chapter or book will be significantly reworked from the earlier version: Harvard University Press has said that "we expect that the final product will be so broadened, deepened, reconsidered, and restructured that the availability of the dissertation is irrelevant."

Still have concerns? Talk to your supervisor or contact the Digital Scholarship Librarians at [email protected] .

A person who does something with a copyright protected work that only the copyright owner is entitled to do, and does so without the permission of the copyright owner, infringes copyright and can be held liable. Either civil or criminal penalties can be imposed for copyright infringement. Criminal penalties can include fines and/or imprisonment and depend on the seriousness of the infringement. While criminal penalties are usually reserved for those engaged in piracy for profit, civil penalties, including an order to pay damages or an injunction to cease infringing, can be imposed for other types of infringement. Monetary damages could be awarded to the copyright owner for loss of income caused by the infringement or for other losses. Statutory damages for all infringements for all works involved are limited to $5,000 if the infringements are for a non-commercial purpose, or $20,000 for all infringements of each work involved when the infringements are for a commercial purpose. 

Generally, the person who actually infringes the rights of the copyright owner will be held liable for the infringement. In the absence of the fair dealing exception or a license, a student, staff member or faculty member who copies a copyright protected work (e.g., scans a book, photocopies an article) without permission will be held liable for that infringement. Staff sometimes copy materials at the request of others (e.g., a faculty member or a student). In that case, both the person who actually infringes copyright (the staff member) and the person who requested the staff member to so infringe (the faculty member or the student) can be held liable for the infringement. In addition, you may place liability on the University if as an employee you copy works in an infringing manner in the course of your employment. Employees are responsible for following all University policies.

In addition to potential liability, staff at the University Libraries, Archives, Bookstore, Centre for Educational Excellence, Communications and Marketing and Document Solutions have a professional responsibility to respect copyright law and may refuse to copy or print something if it is thought to be an infringement of copyright law.

Simon Fraser University's  copyright policies align with the Government of Canada’s copyright legislation ( Copyright Act ) and outline the institution’s requirements of faculty, staff and students to comply with all legal requirements. 

Simon Fraser University is committed to compliance in all copyright matters.  It is the responsibility of each individual to comply with copyright laws and respect copyright ownership and licensing.  The use of copyright protected materials without proper consent may be actionable under both the Copyright Act and the Criminal Code . In addition to any actions that might be taken by any copyright owner or its licensing agent, the University will take any breaches of its copyright policy very seriously. In the case of employees, disciplinary procedures may be applied. In the case of students, disciplinary action for academic and/or non-academic misconduct may be applied.

Everyone. Faculty, staff and students should always seek to comply with the Copyright Act as a best practice of academic professionalism. You are only permitted to make lawful copies of works, and use works in lawful ways. Failure to comply with the Copyright Act could lead to personal liability, as well as liability for the University. Ensure that you use copyright protected materials appropriately. Advise students and colleagues to use copyright protected materials appropriately. Contact the Copyright Officer if you have questions.

See the pages for Instructors , Staff , Students or Authors and other creators on the Copyright website for FAQs, links and resources.

For help with locating and contacting authors, publishers or other copyright holders for materials you wish to include in your thesis or other work, contact the liaison librarian for your department. A template letter prepared by the Copyright Officer is available for you to modify and use when requesting permissions for works included in your thesis.

Copyright Decision Tree Provides steps to determine whether you can use a copyright protected work in the way you would like to, both for teaching and for other purposes. Use this in conjunction with other resources and information on this website.

SFU employees have the responsibility to abide by Canada’s  Copyright Act  and by the University’s own copyright policies.

This decision tree will help you determine whether you can use a copyright protected work in the way you would like to.

Is the work protected by copyright? 

Material not protected by copyright includes material in the public domain and material lacking in creativity or originality such as data, facts or ideas. The FAQs at  copyright.sfu.ca  can help you.

• Yes (go to next step)
• No (use the work)

Are you the creator of the work? 

If so, do you own copyright in the work? Or have you retained the right to use it for this purpose, or to use a different version (e.g. a pre-print)?

• Yes (use the work or the specific version allowed)
• No (go to next step)

What do you want to do with the work? Is the work licensed for this type of use? 

(E.g. Library license, Open Access, Creative Commons)

• Yes (use the work and comply with conditions of license)

Is there a licensing agreement or statement specifically disallowing this use of the work? 

(E.g. website terms of use, restrictions on Library license)

• Yes (find a different source for the same work without the restriction OR go to "If you are unable to use this material")

Is the work protected by a technological protection measure (TPM)? 

(E.g. password or download-blocker)

• Yes (find a different source for the same work without TPM (e.g. scan a print version instead of downloading a pdf) OR go to "If you are unable to use this material")

Does fair dealing or another Copyright Act exception apply? 

See the Instructors section at copyright.sfu.ca for what you can do with copyright protected works for teaching purposes, or contact the Copyright Office ( [email protected] ) with any questions.

• Yes (use the work and comply with conditions in the  Act )

If you are unable to use this material

• ask the copyright holder for permission to use the work in this way,
• adapt the material, repurpose the data in your own way or paraphrase (with attribution in each case),
• provide a link to the work instead,
• remove the work, or
• use a different work.

All works must be legally obtained. Works must be properly cited. 07/2019.

Canadian Public Domain Flowchart A visual tool by the Copyright Office at the University of Alberta (2023, licensed  CC BY ) to help determine when the copyright term for a work expires, the work enters the public domain in Canada and it can be used freely (in Canada) without permission or payment of royalties.

Template permission letter For contacting copyright holders for permission to reproduce their material in your thesis. This letter can be adapted to other situations where you need a copyright holder's permission to reproduce their material. Note: You do not need a formal signed letter granting permission - email correspondence in which you request permission and let the copyright holder know that your thesis will be publicly available online, and in which they clearly grant permission, is acceptable.

Copyright and your Thesis workshop slides by the Copyright Office This brief presentation is usually included in the Research Commons' Thesis Word Template workshop.

Copyright Workshop Videos  by the Copyright Office These videos are based on our faculty workshops, and include Copyright Basics (an introduction to the basic elements of copyright law in Canada), and  Teaching and Copyright  (a two-part look at finding and sharing material, which is aimed at instructors but Part 1 particularly can also be applied to finding material you can reproduce in your thesis).

Grad workshop handout noting key copyright considerations for students writing their theses.

About Creative Commons licenses by the Copyright Office

Scholarly Publishing (SFU Library) Provides authors with information about options for publishing their scholarly works, including the traditional publishing business model as well as alternatives such as open access journals, open access institutional and disciplinary repositories, Creative Commons licensing and retaining certain creator rights.

Note : The information obtained from or through this website is provided as guidelines for using works for educational purposes and is not intended to constitute legal advice. Contact [email protected] with any questions. The Copyright Officer is not a lawyer or legal expert in copyright law and is able to provide a professional and not a legal opinion. A professional opinion is offered for information purposes only and should not be relied upon as legal advice.

No. 59: Video Games and Copyright Protection Under International, European, and U.S. Law

• Ismail Ekin Gürünlü
• Ismail Ekin Gürünlü, Video Games and Copyright Protection Under International, European, and U.S. Law , TTLF Working Papers No. 59, Stanford-Vienna Transatlantic Technology Law Forum (2020).
• Transatlantic Technology Law Forum

Video games form the most creative world-wide entertainment industry and they foster innovation and development on both computer science and art in today’s digitalized world. Since these complex works contain multiple forms of art that have been already subjected to the protection regimes established under copyright, copyright law naturally becomes the most relevant intellectual property right for a discussion to be conducted on them. In order to reveal the current approaches on protecting video games, that has become a billion-dollar industry recently, this thesis aims to reveal different levels of copyright protection and the legal uncertainties occurred due to the existing considerations adopted under International, US and European copyright law. In this point, this thesis discusses the current position of video games in the realm of copyright and it seeks to reveal the deficiencies of the regimes applied in the above-mentioned jurisdictions. Accordingly, the preferences on the legal classification of video games together with their consideration under the idea/expression dichotomies and the legal consequences of such preferences are revealed and discussed. Following the discussions and considerations on the current protection regimes, it is found that the current protection regimes are not capable enough to handle such complex work of authorship. Therefore, as a second step, this thesis touches upon and evaluates the measures launched by the industry to cope with the existing issues and reviews the capability of such measures to handle the legal uncertainties. However, it is also observed that the current measures launched by the industry establish unjust applications of rights rather than finding a sustainable solution. Therefore, this thesis aims to carve out a brief sui generis copyright regime for video games that addresses the prominent issues observed throughout this thesis and that would be able constitute medium specific solutions to cope with the current issues and uncertainties on the protection of video games under copyright. Finally, this thesis concludes that the existing copyright laws are inadequate to handle a complex, developing and highly innovative product belonging to a billion-dollar industry in today’s digitalized and interactive world and it proposes a new regime that would be able to cover the specific points and needs of video games and that would be discussed internationally for the following years.