It is inevitable that as a researcher you will build upon the work and ideas of others as well as creating your own research outputs. You will be required to disseminate your research, however this dissemination must not only take account of copyright law, it must also adhere to licences and agreements with publishers, funders and other relevant parties.
You must take into consideration:
- how you protect your own copyright in the work you produce
- how you can use the ideas of others without infringing copyright
- when you may need to obtain copyright permission.
For general copyright advice see Copyright - the basics
Who owns the copyright on my research outputs?
In most circumstances you own the copyright on your own work including your research papers, (journal articles and monographs), theses and research data.
However, there are some exceptions:
- the University may own the copyright if you create something such as computer software or your research results in patents or design rights
- funders such as commercial organisations may own the intellectual property resulting from your research as stated in the funding agreement
- you may share copyright with collaborators or co-authors.
Your PhD theses and copyright
As the author you own the copyright on your theses, apart from any work by others that you might have included.
Using other people's work in your theses
Care must be taken when using work created by others in your theses. You may have included:
- quotations (passages of text or music)
- images (photos, graphs, charts or maps)
In which case you will need to check:
- that the use of the material falls within 'fair dealing'
- copyright has expired
- the work can be used under a Creative Commons license
If none of the above applies then you must seek permission from the copyright holder to include their work in your theses.
Your theses and TeesRep
Researchers at Teesside are required to deposit their completed PhD theses in the University's institutional repository - TeesRep. Once this happens your thesis is publicly available and it becomes even more important that you have adhered to copyright law for anyone else's work you have included. If, for example, you have failed to gain permission from the copyright holder for work falling outside normal copyright rules (as above), you will be asked to redact it.
Your theses and Creative Commons
When you deposit your these in TeesRep you will be required to assign a Creative Commons license. The type of license you select will define how you allow others to use your work.
Publishing Open Access and copyright
Traditional publishing models usually require that an author transfers his/her copyright to the publisher. However, publishing under an Open Access (OA) agreement does not require the author to give up their copyright in the same way as traditional publishing.
By publishing OA you are making your work free for anyone to read at point of access and true OA means that the work must be free from legal restrictions on reuse.
Therefore, when you are in the process of publishing your work OA, your publisher will require you to assign a Creative Commons license. The type of CC license you select may depend on funder policy, however, your publisher will normally give guidance.
Your research data and copyright
Research funders increasingly require research data to be archived and shared in a suitable repository. When sharing data in this manner it falls under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This means that the original researcher or researchers (if more than one) own the copyright.
Where appropriate, Teesside require you to deposit your research data in the University's repository TU Data Repository. As part of this process you will be required to assign a Creative Commons license which will define how you allow others to reuse your work.
Creative Commons explained
Creative Commons are not an alternative to copyright but rather work alongside copyright to enable creators to modify copright terms to best suit their needs and the needs of their audience.
We use them widely in education to facilitate sharing and re-use of materials, while protecting the rights of the copyright holder.
The presence of a Creative Commons license on a copyrighted work tells the re-user exactly what he/she is allowed to do with that work.
There a six different types of Creative Commons license:
- CC BY: this license allows re-users to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon the original material in any medium or format. Attribution must always be given to the creator. It allows for commercial use and is the most permissive CC license.
- CC BY-SA: this license allows re-users to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon the original material in any medium or format. It allows for commercial use. Attribution must always be given to the creator. Adaptations must be licensed under identical terms.
- CC BY-NC: this license allows re-users to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon the original material in any medium or format. It does not allow for commercial use. Attribution must always be given to the creator.
- CC BY-NC-SA: this license allows re-users to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon the original material in any medium or format. It does not allow for commercial use. Attribution must always be given to the creator. Adaptations must be licensed under identical terms.
- CC BY-ND: this license allows re-users to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only. The license allow for commercial use. Attribution must always be given to the creator.
- CC BY-NC-ND: this license allows re-users to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only and for non-commercial use. Attribution must always be given to the creator.
