There’s a lot on your mind when you’re writing your thesis or dissertation; very likely, copyright law isn’t one of them. However, it is extremely helpful to you as a writer and researcher to know how copyright law applies to your dissertation and various forms it may take throughout its lifecycle.
Copyright in Academic Contexts
According to Kenneth D. Crews, copyright in academia is “primarily about getting the most from your scholarly work, and it is less about the legal complications with threats of possible liabilities” (3). In other words, the purpose of copyright here is not to restrict but to empower you as you make work available to other scholars.
Is My Thesis or Diss Protected Under Copyright Law?
Your thesis or dissertation is automatically protected by copyright law because it is a fixed, original work. This means that you do not need to register your thesis or diss with the US Copyright Office, nor do you need to put a copyright notice on your document. In virtually all cases, the creator of the dissertation or thesis is the copyright holder, but sometimes copyright may be held by an employer, publisher, or entity that funded the research. Those cases are contractual, so be sure to review any contracts very thoroughly before you sign.
How Does Copyright Law Protect My Work?
However, assuming you are the copyright holder, you have the freedom to decide how you want to publish your work. When you deposit your thesis or diss with ProQuest, you retain the rights to your work, so it does not become ProQuest’s property. As long as you hold the copyright to the work, you are free to decide how you want to revise or modify any part or all of your paper into an article, a book, or other type of project.
Furthermore, if other researchers wish to use your work, you have the right to enforce your copyright protections against infringement. Alternatively, you can choose to allow others to use your work; you can even attach a Creative Commons license to the work to ensure that others are free to use it.
What Else Do I Need to Know About Copyright?
Since copyright works both ways – protecting the intellectual property of others as well as your own – it is important to know what options you have for using the works of others in your thesis or diss. You may use works that are in the public domain, including documents published by the US Government, which by default are not protected by copyright. Additionally, it is possible that your use of copyrighted works may fall under fair use – i.e., commentary and non-profit educational purposes. In a worst-case scenario, you may need to get written permission from a copyright holder to use a specific image, song, poem, test instrument, etc., currently under copyright.
Additionally, while your thesis or dissertation is by definition copyrighted when you create it, you may choose to register your work with the US Copyright Office. You pay a one-time fee that varies depending on what kind of document you want to register. ProQuest offers a copyright registration service as part of the submission process; they’ll handle the process for you for a reasonable additional fee. Registering copyright with the Library of Congress is optional, but it affords you standing to sue in case of infringement.
As stated before, you may also choose to attach a Creative Commons license to your work, which you can do here. And since you are the copyright holder, you may simply choose to note in the front matter of your thesis or diss whatever permissions you would like to offer other researchers. Just keep in mind that a Creative Commons license cannot be revoked after it is attached to the work, which may limit your future publishing options. The same would apply for making your thesis or diss open access. If your thesis or diss contains sensitive information or original material that you might want to patent, then it would be advantageous not only to retain all rights to your work but also to limit public access for some defined period of time.
It’s never to early in the process to learn about copyright and what you ultimately want to do with your work, so discuss your goals and options with your faculty advisors and talk with us in the Thesis and Diss Office if you have questions about copyright and how it may apply to your work.
Work Cited
Crews, K. D. Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis: Ownership, Fair Use, and Your Rights and Responsibilities. ProQuest, 2013, https://media2.proquest.com/documents/copyright_dissthesis_ownership.pdf
