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Copyright and Scholarly Publishing

Copyright questions in scholarly publishing generally fall into two main categories:

  • Using others’ work: How to legally incorporate someone else’s content into your own scholarship.
  • Managing your own rights: What you’re allowed to do with your own work after it has been published.

For information about negotiating publication agreements, see our guide on Author Rights. If you have a question about anything covered in this guide or wish to schedule a consultation about your author rights or publications, please contact Xiao Zeng, Open Publishing Librarian.

Scholarship builds on work that has come before. Sometimes this referential relationship requires not just citing prior work, but reproducing some portion of it for purposes like illustration, comparison, or critique. Instances of reproduction are allowable when:

  • The work being copied is in the public domain because its copyright protection has expired
  • The work being copied is factual and not eligible for copyright protection
  • The way the work is being used qualifies as fair use
  • The copyright owner has granted permission for the work to be used, either for a specific use, or generally through a Creative Commons license or similar tool.

Authors typically start out as the sole copyright owners of the articles, books, and software they write, and, as such, they have broad control over their work. But when authors publish, they are usually asked to give away some of their rights to the publisher. Sometimes they are asked to transfer copyright ownership altogether.

The terms you agreed to with your publisher control what you can do with your work. These rights vary widely from publisher to publisher. If you no longer have your publication agreement, you can search the Jisc | Open Policy Finder database to see if your publisher is included, or you can contact the publisher directly.

Copyright and Theses/Dissertations

It is common for early researchers not to be offered formal copyright training as part of their professional development, making it difficult to understand what protections are applied to their scholarly works under the law. UH Libraries can help guide you through the fundamentals around copyright as it pertains to your dissertation work.

For in-depth assistance, please consult the reference guide below or contact Xiao Zeng, the Open Publishing Librarian.