proquest copyright dissertation

Is it worth $75? Copyright and copyright registration for theses and dissertations

Terrill, K., & Compton, L. (2021). Is it worth $75? Copyright and copyright registration for theses and dissertations. [White Paper]. Iowa State University Center for Communication Excellence, Graduate College. Retrieved from https://cce.pubpub.org/pub/copyright

Your head is still spinning with the mix of exhilaration, anxiety, and exhaustion from defending your graduate research to your POS committee. You passed! And you’ve jumped through most of the administrative hoops standing between you and your diploma. As you click through the ProQuest thesis/dissertation submission form, you click Save and Continue, and then you get to the “Register U.S. Copyright” screen. Your cover page contains a copyright statement, which was part of the ISU thesis/dissertation template. So, do you need to request for ProQuest to file for U.S. copyright registration? You skim over the wall of text on the ProQuest page and realize it raises more questions than it answers.

Introduction

The concept of copyright is often a confusing concept to many graduate students. This article is intended to define the concept and demystify some of the considerations so that you can make an informed decision about handling your copyright for your ISU thesis, dissertation, or creative component 1 .

As seen in the scenario, you will face the copyright questions when you plan to upload your thesis/dissertation to ProQuest. Figure 1 shows a screenshot from ProQuest.

At this point, you may begin to wonder how copyright impacts your thesis/dissertation. Here are some possible questions with the quick and easy answers.

Question: Do I need to request for ProQuest to file for U.S. copyright registration?

Answer : No. You own the copyright for your thesis/dissertation, whether or not it is registered.

Follow-up question : So, why should I copyright?

Answer : Registering your copyright gives you access to some additional legal protection.

Question : How should I copyright?

Answer : You can pay ProQuest to file the copyright for you, or you can file it yourself with a lower fee.

Figure 1: Screenshot of copyright questions from ProQuest

Now that you’ve gotten some quick and easy answers, you may want to understand more about what copyright is, how it works, and some guidance to help you decide whether and how to register your copyright. This article will give you some key ideas and links to other resources for further readings.

What is copyright?

Copyright concerns the legal right to share original works of authorship, which includes things like written work, artwork, non-patentable computer programs, sound recordings, choreography, and architectural works. Literally, it is the right to make a copy. [NO_PRINTED_FORM] It is illegal and a violation of copyright law to share and reproduce any kind of work without the copyright holder’s permission unless it falls under one of the exceptions to copyright law.

When you create an original work of authorship and you have not otherwise transferred or assigned ownership of that work to a third party, you might want to share it, and you are entitled to do just that. You are also entitled to get credit for the work. If people are willing to pay money for access to the work, you are entitled to receive payment for giving them access.

If someone else decides to share your work without your permission, you also have the right to prevent them from doing so, even if they modify the work in some way (this is called ‘preparing derivative works’). If someone else sharing your work leads to you missing out on the chance to collect payment for access to the work, you have the right to collect that payment from the person who shared your work.

The rights described above apply to all original works of authorship, whether the copyright is registered or not. Registering a copyright creates a formal record of a copyright ‘claim’, that is, of someone asserting their ownership of the original work of authorship.

In short, holding a copyright entitles you to share things that you create and to control who else can share things that you create.

How does copyright work?

“ Everyone is a copyright owner . Once you create an original work and fix it, like taking a photograph, writing a poem or blog, or recording a new song, you are the author and the owner.” US Copyright Office ( https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/ )

As soon as an original work of authorship is “’fixed’ in a tangible medium of expression”, it is automatically subject to copyright protection. In other words, you hold a copyright for anything you have ever written down, drawn up, typed out, drafted, sculpted, video recorded, etc., unless it involved copying an existing original work of authorship. Even if you accidentally shot a video of your hand and part of your knee when you were trying to switch your smartphone camera to the self-facing view, you own the copyright to that video. However, you don’t hold a copyright for notes you copied from a teacher’s PowerPoint, or for Hello Kitty doodles you drew in the margin, because those are derivative works.

Question : Do I own the copyright to my thesis/dissertation?

Answer : Yes, you generally own the copyright in this original scholarly work as soon as it’s fixed in a tangible medium of expression, unless you have transferred your ownership to someone else or it is a “work for hire” under copyright law.

Question : Are there instances where I don’t own copyright to my thesis/dissertation?

Answer : Yes. In some cases, you may not be the copyright owner even though you wrote the thesis/dissertation. This can occur when your research is sponsored by an organization or company and the sponsor requires ownership of all copyrightable works resulting from such a project, including academic papers. In such cases, the sponsored project agreement would require assignment of copyright to the sponsor. Graduate students are discouraged from working on such sponsored projects in order to preserve the student’s ability to publish and to minimize academic impacts. This can also occur if you are employed by an organization who is supporting your thesis/dissertation and you are required to assign your intellectual property to the organization as part of your terms of employment or your engagement constitutes “work for hire” under copyright law.

Question : What do I need to do if I am not the copyright owner of my thesis/dissertation or if I am unsure?

Answer : You may be asked by your major professor and/or sponsor to exclude the copyright statement from the Title Page. If this is the case, be sure to indicate this information to the Thesis/Dissertation Reviewer in ProQuest.

Question : What else do I need to do?

Answer : Email [email protected] to let the Graduate College know. The Graduate College will verify the copyright ownership with the Office of Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer (OIPTT) https://www.techtransfer.iastate.edu/

Question : Are there any other considerations?

Answer : Check with your major professor and/or sponsor about the possibility of an embargo. For more information about embargoes, go to https://www.grad-college.iastate.edu/thesis/embargo-copyright/ or watch this Center for Communication Excellence’s YouTube video “Thesis/Dissertation Embargo: What Graduate Students Need To Know”.

Transferring copyright

Some graduate students have complicated situations involving other parties who may have rights or licenses related to the copyright on their thesis, dissertation, or creative component. Here are a couple of common scenarios where you may need to transfer your copyright.

Granting a license

As the author of an original work, you may choose to give others permission to reproduce your work. For instance, you may submit a manuscript based on your thesis to a peer-reviewed journal, or your poem to a publisher. If you agree to give permission to only one entity at a time (which some journals and publishers require), then you grant them an exclusive license.

Work made for hire

If your research takes place during the course of your employment through your place of employment, then your thesis, dissertation, or creative component may be considered work made for hire. In this case, the person or company who hired you is considered the author and copyright owner of the work. You cannot register a copyright for a work that you made for hire as you are not the copyright owner. (see also Section 3. How does copyright work? )

Registering copyright

So far, this article has discussed how you are the copyright owner of your thesis/dissertation unless you have otherwise transferred or assigned copyright in your work to a third party or it is considered a work for hire. This section discusses whether it is necessary to file for a copyright for your work.

Copyright claims are valuable because they entitle the holder to enjoy the benefits of creating the work. These could include esteem and honor, money, and feelings of satisfaction and pride. Setting an original work of authorship loose into the world can put some of these benefits in jeopardy.

Question : Must I register my copyright with the US Copyright Office?

Answer: No. You automatically own the copyright to your thesis/dissertation as the creator of the original work unless you have otherwise transferred or assigned your copyright to a third party or it falls under “works made for hire”.

Question : So, what is the big deal about copyright?

Answer: Even though you own the copyright to your thesis/dissertation, registering for a copyright will be necessary if you ever need to bring a lawsuit for the infringement of a US work.

You may be wondering now if you should or shouldn’t register your thesis/dissertation. Only YOU can answer that question. If you have purchased an air-ticket or booked a vacation before, you will know that you have the choice of purchasing an insurance policy to protect your cost in case something prevents you from making the trip. In most cases, you do not need to claim the insurance because the chances of something preventing you from your trip are slim. However, in some cases, you may be glad that you did buy the insurance policy because something did happen. The same goes for your decision to register your thesis/dissertation. You may also want to seek out counsel from your major professor and the Office of Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer (OIPTT) if you have questions about registering your thesis/dissertation especially if it contains a patent, an original concept, or marketable materials.

If you have more questions about Copyright in General, it is a good time to pause and read up on this Frequently Asked Questions from the US Copyright Office: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#protect

Types of damages

Copyright protection is automatic, but there are many reasons why you might choose to register your thesis/dissertation. One common reason is simply to have your copyright as a public record and have a copy of certification of registration. A second reason, as mentioned earlier, is to have a legal claim if you need to bring an infringement lawsuit.

Copyright holders can sue people who infringe on their copyright. In this situation, the copyright holder may simply want to force the infringer to stop what they are doing. However, they can also sue the infringer for money, which is called damages. There are two types of damages: actual damages and statutory damages.

Actual damages

Actual damages refers to the loss of money or other material asset that is caused by the infringement. Say, for instance, that your thesis contains a poem, which you later publish in a book that gets sold in bookstores. If a poetry blogger were to reprint the poem that you included in your thesis on their website, some poetry enthusiasts might choose to read your poem on that website instead of purchasing your book at a bookstore. If you can prove that the sales of your book were harmed because the poem was published without your permission on the blogger’s website, then you could sue that blogger for actual damages. However, this could be challenging to prove.

Statutory damages

Statutory damages refers to amounts pre-determined by statute to be awarded to a plaintiff if copyright infringement is found, including attorney fees. Unlike actual damages, statutory damages are not linked to loss of money or material asset experienced by the plaintiff. A copyright holder who receives statutory damages does not need to prove that the copyright infringement caused them to lose profit; all they need to prove is that their copyright was infringed. However, statutory damages are generally not available in infringement of an unregistered work. Additionally, statutory damages are only available if the thesis/dissertation was registered within 3 months of publications, or if the thesis/dissertation was unpublished, it must have been registered prior to the act of infringement.

Question : So, if I did not register my thesis/dissertation, I cannot bring my copyright infringement case to court?

Answer: Yes. Even though you own the copyright to your thesis/dissertation, you can only be eligible to file a lawsuit for copyright infringement if you registered your copyright with the US Copyright Office prior to the act of infringement.

Question: What if I registered my copyright after I discover the act of infringement and brought a claim to court?

Answer: You can register your copyright and then bring a claim, but it will not be eligible for statutory damages since the copyright was not registered prior to the act of infringement. Furthermore, as indicated in 6.1 Actual damages, actual damages must be proven, and that could be challenging.

Exercising copyright

You can register your copyright with the US Copyright Office at any time; it does not have to be registered when you publish your thesis/dissertation. However, if someone infringes your copyright when it is not registered, you may waive your ability to seek statutory damages and will be required to prove actual damages.

Should you register for U.S. copyright through ProQuest?

Having read through this article and learned more about copyright than you ever thought you would, you may have made up your mind to register your copyright for your thesis, dissertation, or creative component. The only question that remains is whether you should do this through ProQuest.

Using ProQuest to register your thesis/dissertation will cost more money than registering it yourself directly with the U.S. Copyright Office. The extra cost is a convenience fee that ProQuest collects in exchange for completing your registration application on your behalf.

To register your copyright yourself costs about $45; the cost to have ProQuest register your copyright is about $75.

Note: The fees listed are based on the time of publication. The fees may change over time. Please check with the US Copyright Office and ProQuest for actual fees.

Additional Resources

Below are additional resources that may help you decide if you should or should not register your copyright.

Copyright Basics Information provided by the U.S. Copyright Office summarizing the rights of copyright holders

Should I Copyright my Dissertation? Provides guidance on whether to register a copyright for your thesis, dissertation, or creative component 

Copyright for Dissertations List of definitions of relevant terms in everyday language

Subject Matter and Scope of Copyright List of definitions, rights, and limitations of copyright in formal legal language

Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis Provides guidance on how to avoid infringing on someone else’s copyright, and how to request official permission to reproduce copyrighted material

Acknowledgement

We offer our deepest appreciation to Barbara Biederman from Iowa State University’s Office of University Counsel for her knowledge and feedback; her expertise provided invaluable information about the topic and guided our final draft.

Menand, L. (2004). Crooner in rights spat: Are copyright laws too strict? The New Yorker , October 20, 2014.

US Copyright Office (2021). Register your work: Registration portal. Copyright.gov. https://www.copyright.gov/registration/

Thesis & Dissertation Publishing: ProQuest Copyright Options

• Getting Started
• Publish /Upload with ProQuest
• ProQuest Copyright Options
• Graduate Research (Research Guide) This link opens in a new window

ProQuest ETD Publishing Options

Publishing your graduate thesis or dissertation electronically through ProQuest ETD is a requirement of the University of Wyoming. You will need to select either traditional publishing or open access publishing during the submission process. Review the materials explaining these copyright choices prior to submitting your thesis or dissertation. You may want to discuss the options with your major professor as well.

• Open Access Compared to Traditional Publishing Definitions and choice considerations for publishing options (from ProQuest)

ProQuest EDT - Traditional Copyright Option

The traditional publishing option indexes your work in the ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global (and associated) databases at no cost to you. Many academic libraries worldwide subscribe to this resource, making full text (PDF) content readily accessible to authorized users (i.e., students, faculty, and staff) at their institutions. ProQuest will sell individual copies of a thesis or dissertation upon request. You may also choose to make purchase of your thesis or dissertation available via third parties. If your thesis or dissertation is sold, you will receive royalties as long as you maintain a current address with ProQuest.

The citation record for your thesis or dissertation is findable in search engines for Google Scholar and google.com unless you opt out; however, your full text PDF will not accessible on these websites when choosing the traditional publishing option.

ProQuest EDT - Open Access Copyright Option

Open access publishing is an option that provides more access to your research work than with traditional publishing. Researchers and scholars around the world have access to your work without having to pay for access through a publishing company. This option involves an additional fee from the author (i.e., graduate student submitter).

To publish your thesis or dissertation as open access, select the "Open Access Publishing Plus" option when setting up your ProQuest ETD account. Follow the prompts and pay the additional fee. You will not receive any royalties with this option.

The citation record for your thesis or dissertation is findable in search engines for Google Scholar and google.com unless you opt out. When you choose the ProQuest open access publishing option, your full text PDF will also be freely accessible on these websites.

• ProQuest Open Access Service Overview of Open Access option for theses and dissertations on ProQuest.

Delayed Release - Embargoes

When submitting your thesis or dissertation to ProQuest ETD, you can specify whether you want it to be released immediately upon publication or for it to be delayed for a set period of time (i.e., 6 months, 1 year, or 2 years). Delayed release of a publication is called an embargo. You may want to specify an embargo period to protect your creative content while preparing a journal article, or pursuing publication by an academic press or commercial press, or to retain patenting rights, or for ethical non-disclosure reasons.

• Embargoes & Restrictions Guide (ProQuest ETD)

Articles Regarding Open Access and Embargo Choices

• Open Access and the Graduate Author: A Dissertation Anxiety Manual Chapter in the book "Open Access and the Future of Scholarly Communication: Implementation"
• Do Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations Diminish Publishing Opportunities in the Social Sciences and Humanities? Findings from a 2011 Survey of Academic Publishers Article in "College & Research Libraries"
• Do Open Access Electronic Theses and Dissertations Diminish Publishing Opportunities in the Sciences? Article in "College & Research Libraries"

Copyright for Dissertations & Theses

• Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis (ProQuest manual) Understand copyright issues "by clarifying your ownership of the dissertation, registering the copyright, and deciding whether a Creative Commons license is appropriate." Provided by the publisher of the ProQuest Theses & Dissertations Global database.

Registering Copyright

Your creative and original research work is copyrighted automatically. Registering your copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office is optional, and costs extra. Copyright registration allows you to sue for statutory and actual damages as well as for attorneys' fees if someone steals your work and claims it as their own. Without registration, your copyright still entitles you to sue for actual damages (only) for copyright infringement.

• U.S. Copyright Office

ProQuest ETD Submission

You may create your ProQuest ETD account before you are ready to publish. Be sure to remember your log-on information for when you return to the website to upload your final document.

• ProQuest ETD Submission - website for UW
• How to submit to ProQuest ETD (ProQuest LibGuide) To access a training video, click the links for "Recorded Webinars" then "ETD Administrator - Electronic Submissions: Product Education" then "ETD Administrator -- Student Submission Webinar."

Related Research Guides

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/images/cornell/logo35pt_cornell_white.svg" alt="proquest copyright dissertation"> 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

Dissertations, Doctoral Projects, and Theses: Copyright

Who owns copyright in my dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis after it is published in digitalgeorgetown and proquest.

You own the copyright in your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis from the moment it is fixed in a tangible form, such as saved as a digital file. Nothing in the submission process to ProQuest or DigitalGeorgetown changes the ownership status of your work. As the copyright owner, you have the exclusive right to copy and distribute your work. When you submit your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis, you will grant limited rights to Georgetown University and ProQuest so they can make your work available online.

DigitalGeorgetown

When you sign the Electronic Thesis, Doctoral Project & Dissertation (ETD) Release , you grant a non-exclusive license to Georgetown University to make your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis available online in the University's Institutional Repository, DigitalGeorgetown .

As part of the submission process through the  ProQuest ETD Administrator , you will grant ProQuest a non-exclusive license to make your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis available online in its subscription databases. For a fee, you may choose to make your work available open access on proquest.com .

Do I need to register my copyright?

Registering your copyright with the Copyright Office is not required for your work to be protected by copyright, but it is required if you ever need to enforce your rights through litigation. If you are considering registering your copyright, read more on our Copyright Registration page.

What do I do if I have used materials created by others (text, images, data, charts, etc.) in my work?

While there are unlikely to be any copyright concerns when third-party materials are shared only with your committee, after you submit your work to the Graduate School and it becomes available in DigitalGeorgetown to anyone with internet access, you must consider whether you are infringing any copyrights by making third-party works freely available. Both the DigitalGeorgetown release form and the ProQuest submission form require you to certify that you have obtained any necessary permissions for materials in your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis.

If the materials you are using are in the public domain, have a Creative Commons license, or are fair uses, you may use them without permission from the copyright owner. In addition to the pages linked below, you may find our Copyright Videos useful to better understand your rights and responsibilities when using third-party materials in your work.

Public Domain

Materials in the public domain are not protected by copyright law, and therefore may be used freely. “Public domain” has a defined meaning under copyright law and does not mean materials publicly available on the internet. While there are several ways that a work may enter the public domain, the most likely is that copyright protection has expired. For 2022, anything published before 1927 can be used freely. Read more about the public domain on our Public Domain page.

Creative Commons

Some materials have a Creative Commons or other open license that allows materials to be reused with few or no restrictions. For materials found online, check the website’s terms and conditions to see whether the work may be used for noncommercial educational purposes.

Fair use permits the use of limited portions of a third-party work in a new work without permission or license fees. Absent unusual circumstances, properly cited direct quotations in your work will qualify as a fair use. For the use of other works, you will need to analyze the four fair use factors to determine whether your use is fair. Fair use determinations are subjective, fact-specific, and not completely risk-free since users and rights holders may disagree on whether a potential use is fair. To learn more about fair use, visit our Fair Use page.

If there are any materials in your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis that are not public domain, Creative Commons, or fair use, you may be able to request permission to use them in your work. To learn more, visit our Requesting Permission page. Another option is to remove the copyrighted material from your work before submitting it through the ProQuest submission portal. You should note where any material in your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis was redacted and describe what information has been removed.

Where can I get more information about copyright and my dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis?

• Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis (2014) - overview from ProQuest
• Copyright and Your Dissertation or Thesis: Ownership, Fair Use, and Your Rights and Responsibilities (2013) - detailed manual by Kenneth Crews
• If you have questions about copyright and your dissertation, doctoral project, or thesis, contact [email protected] .
• For questions about DigitalGeorgetown, contact [email protected] .

DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln

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Graduate Studies

Thesis and dissertation deposit information resources, should i copyright my dissertation.

Paul Royster , University of Nebraska-Lincoln Follow

Paul Royster

Date of this Version

1. Your dissertation (and any other creative work) is already automatically copyright in your name as soon as it assumes "fixed form," i.e., as soon as it is written. It's publication (or deposit) in ProQuest's dissertations database or in the UNL DigitalCommons provides an independently verified date of record. So— No, you do not need to copyright your dissertation; that happens already automatically.

2. ProQuest asks if my dissertation is already or previously copyrighted. What does that mean? Do I answer yes or no? Sometimes, on rare occasions, a graduate degree is awarded based on a document that has already been published (and copyrighted) before it is deposited as an official dissertation. If that is the case, answer "yes." Otherwise (and normally), the answer should be "no."

3. ProQuest asks if I wish for them to register the copyright in my dissertation; what does that mean? Copyrights can be (but are not required to be) "registered" with the U.S. Copyright Office. This used to be required to get the protection of copyright for the full term, but that is no longer the case. Copyright belongs to the author automatically for the full 95-year term (currently) whether it is registered or not. What is the point of registering? If you find someone has infringed on your copyright and you want to sue them and collect monetary damages, you can only collect damages back to the date of the official registration. You can stop them from infringing, but you cannot collect damages for infringement that happened prior to the registration date. Is there a cut-off for registering? No, you can register your copyright at any time. You can register copyright yourself: Basic registration fee is $35 if done online, $65 if done on paper. ProQuest's charge for doing it for you at the time of deposit is $75. The United States Copyright Office is @ http://www.copyright.gov/ Registration, however, does not guarantee a work's copyright. For example, the Copyright Office might register your claim to copyright of a document that is actually taken from other (already copyrighted) sources or material that is legally in the public domain. In order for copyright to be valid, the material has to be legally subject to copyright, and registration does nothing for that one way or another.

So, should I have ProQuest register copyright for me? Short answer: for an academic dissertation, probably not. ( But it's your money; better to spend it on that than to blow it on drugs, tattoos, and Nicki Minaj downloads. )

Since November 30, 2012

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