When drafting a dissertation, you may want to reuse a paper, a table, figure, or an image. These works, even your own works, are always protected by copyright except when the work is included in the public domain. A best practice is to note the copyright holder and license as you are researching, rather than waiting until you are writing. Later, you may need to ask for permission to reuse a work and this can take time and money. If you wait until you are ready to submit your dissertation, you may not be able to include it.

What is Copyright?

In the United States, protection of intellectual property is embedded in the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8. Copyright protects intellectual property for a set amount of time to incentivize scientific and creative activities. It is a legal concept that grants the holder the ability to decide how others will use their work. Rules vary across countries and regions.
The rights include:

  • making copies,
  • distribution (sharing more than a link),
  • making derivative works,
  • publicly performing
  • and displaying.

Who owns the copyright?

You hold the copyright to start with unless you have made a “work for hire” agreement with your employer. When an article has multiple authors, you all jointly own the copyright. Copyright ownership happens implicitly as soon as you write or create a tangible product as an unpublished work; you do not need to register it. In the United States, academics often retains the copyright until publication. At that point, you may sign an agreement that transfers some or all the rights to the publisher.

Why Does it Matter?

Some authors give their work and rights to publishers in exchange for publishing services, such as efficient distribution by highly regarded journal brands, expert copy editing and facilitation of peer review. Publishers often support themselves with subscription fees from libraries and information centers so that the articles can be read. The articles reside behind a paywall and the access is limited to those authorized by the publisher. Students need to ask for permissions to make derivatives works like dissertations unless a publisher allows this use. This is changing with the emergence of Open Access publishing, prevalence of preprints and public access required by some funders.

How Do I Get Permission?

Some journal publishers, like ACS Publications, give permission for reuse of some of their content in dissertations so check with the publisher that is holding the copyright.  If the article has a Creative Commons license, verify that you can make a derivative. If you are not sure, ask for permission. Most publishers work with the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) which facilitates this process with online forms. Frequently there is a fee involved. Find the article on the publisher’s website and click on a “rights and permissions” link to request permissions. If links to the CCC are not easy to find, you can write to the copyright holder and ask to reuse the materials.

Open Access, Creative Commons Licensing, Preprints and Public Access

In recent years, a push has been made for free access to scientific articles.

  • Publishing Open Access usually costs money for the researcher via an article processing charge (APC), sometimes covered by libraries and information centers which have renegotiated their license agreements. During Open Access publishing, authors and publishers use Creative Commons licenses to communicate what readers can do with a work.
  • The most common Creative Commons license is CC -BY which means that readers can make copies, distribute, make derivatives if they provide attribution/ citation to the creator. There are other more restrictive licenses the prohibit commercial use or prevent distribution of derivatives.
  • Authors that share preprints via ChemRxiv retain their rights, share non-exclusive rights of distribution with ChemRxiv, and give rights back to users using Creative Commons licenses.
  • Funders, like the National Science Foundation (NSF), require scientists to share their work publicly via a designated repository, like NSF Public Access Repository (PAR). Scientists often retain their rights. The US Government also has a license to all rights to use for Federal purposes.

The Difference Between Copyright and Citation

Sometimes copyright and citation are confused. Copyright protects intellectual property rights whereas citation provides a path to and credit for intellectual property. A Creative Commons license covers both conditions of reuse and attribution. Plagiarism is when you pass off someone else’s ideas as your own. Copyright Infringement is when you make copies, distribute, make derivatives, perform, or display work when you do not own those rights.
To learn more, see: