COPYRIGHT POLICY

Electronic Thesis: Intellectual Property Issues

Copyright Basics

Under U.S. law, each of us retains legal copyright of our own work once it is in tangible form. This means that if you are incorporating the material of others in your thesis, you should--with the exceptions noted below--request permission to do so. This may seem like a daunting task, but with a little guidance and some lead time, it shouldn't be.

Fair Use and Public Domain

Whether or not material you intend to use includes a copyright notice (©), you must assume that the owner retains copyright and make a "good faith effort" to obtain permission to use it. There are two exceptions to this general rule: (1) "fair use" and (2) use of works that are in the public domain:
(1) The 1976 Copyright Act grants the "fair use" of copyrighted materials for a variety of purposes, including educational use. When determining whether you may quote under the "fair use" provision, you should consider proportionality of the quotation to the copyrighted work as a whole. In other words, if a book is only twenty pages long, reproducing five of those pages in your own work cannot be justified under "fair use," and permission should be sought. Whether or not permission is required, you should always cite your sources.
(2) Works created by the Federal Government and works whose copyright has expired are in the public domain and may be used without seeking permission. The copyright of works registered after January 1, 1978, can be checked on the U.S. Copyright Office website (www.copyright.gov), which also has information about searching earlier works in person or for a fee.

Seeking Permission

You should seek permission to use any material that is not in the public domain or does not qualify as "fair use." This includes text and graphics, whether in print, on-line, or unpublished. If part of your own work has been previously published and copyright is not in your name, you will need to apply to your publisher to reuse the material. When in doubt, seek permission to use the material. Publishers will likely grant permission for your purposes without charging a fee, and by making a good faith effort to contact the copyright-holder-- even if you do not receive a reply--you protect yourself against claims of copyright violation. You should mail, fax, or e-mail a permission request to the publisher. A sample permission request is included here and can also be found in The Chicago Manual of Style. If you are unable to find the publisher on the Web, the addresses of book publishers can be found in Literary Market Place and the addresses of journals can be found in Ulrich's International Periodicals Directory, both of which are available in the Reference Department of Lauinger Library and most other libraries.

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