Copyright

As the author of a work, you are the copyright owner unless or until you transfer your copyright to someone else in a signed agreement.

If you have assigned or licensed copyright in your research to someone else, this may affect how you can share your research. For example, assigning your copyright unreservedly to a publisher may mean that only the publisher will be able to reproduce, publish, communicate, perform or adapt your work - thus preventing you from re-using or distributing your work without publisher permission.

Therefore, before you sign, scrutinise your agreement and consider:

• the rights you want to retain
• the ways you want to use and develop your own work without restriction
• how to increase access to your work for educational and research purposes
• your right to be properly attributed when your work is used
• your right to deposit your work in an online archive or repository
• the requirement to adhere to the open access policies of the ARC, NHMRC and the University of South Australia. 
• your publisher's right for a non-exclusive licence to publish and distribute your work for a financial return
• your publisher's right to be properly attributed and cited
• your publisher's right to migrate your work to future formats and include it in collections.

If you have included content where the copyright is owned by someone other than yourself (e.g. diagram, text, photograph) or you share copyright ownership with your co-authors, you do not necessarily have the right to re-use that material without first seeking permission.

For information about Publishing, including Open Access Publishing, refer to the Library's Publishing Guide.

For information about how copyright applies to your thesis, refer to the Library's Thesis Guide.

Useful links:

• Copyright Publishing and Your Thesis [Video]
• Thesis Toolkit [PDF]
• Copyright Material Log [DOCx]
• Sample Permission Letter [DOCx]
• When can I use someone else's work without permission?
• ARDC Research Data Rights Management Guide [PDF]
• What is Fair Dealing?
• Copyright, publishing and theses: When is permission required? A 3 minute video explaining when you might need to seek permission for including previously published material in your thesis, followed by a demonstration of how to use the Copyright Clearance centre to get those permissions.