Copyright Issues

Copyright Permissions

"Fair use" of copyrighted material does not require permission. If a dissertation includes material protected by copyright beyond fair use, the dissertation author must obtain written permission from the copyright holder. Use of material in the public domain does not require permission.

Copyright Tools (ALA)
Links to a Public Domain Slider to help authors determine whether or not material is protected by copyright

Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States (Cornell)
Includes detailed chart with information on works published outside the U.S.

Fair Use Library (CMSI)
Provides access to Codes of Best Practices and guidance for assessing fair use

Rights, Permissions, and Copyright Administration (Chicago Manual of Style)
Provides information about Open Access and Creative Commons licenses as well as a section on the Author's Own Work

Dissertation Research and Other Publishers

As a condition for receipt of the doctorate, doctoral candidates at the University of Chicago must make their dissertations available in Knowledge@UChicago. If another publisher has accepted dissertation research for publication, the author should be sure to retain the right to provide access to the dissertation in the University's open access repository.

Open Access (UChicago)
Includes information on our agreements with publishers and information about Creative Commons licenses

Thesis Content and Article Publishing (MIT Libraries)
Contains summary of several publishers' dissertation-related policies for MIT; some also pertain to UChicago

Sherpa Romeo
Provides summaries of publisher copyright and open access archiving policies

Creative Commons Licenses

Dissertation authors may choose to select a creative commons license for the dissertation. The Creative Commons (CC) organization provides information about CC licenses on their website.

Using Images and Other Formats

Copyright for Multimedia
Online class from Coursera discussing fair use and format-specific issues for data, images, music, and videos

Images: A Guide to Visual Resources
Guide from the Art, Cinema & History Librarian and the Visual Resources Librarian includes information on images and usage rights

Intellectual Property and the Arts
Resources presented by the College Art Association

Using Material in Archives

Guidelines for Reproducing or Publishing Material
Guidelines from the University of Chicago Library’s Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center

Copyright Registration

Dissertation authors hold the copyright for their own dissertations. Authors may choose to register copyright or not. If registering copyright, they may register directly through the United States Copyright Office.

For a fee, ProQuest will register copyright for authors who include their dissertation in ProQuest.