The Copyright of Your Thesis or Dissertation

 

The Copyright  

The following information is offered as a supplement to the information on copyright available in the Doctoral Dissertation Handbook. This information is provided by the Office of the General Counsel (OGC) of The Catholic University of America.

Copyright privileges vest immediately with the author upon creation of the work, without requirement of notice or registration formalities. Thus, copyright vests with the author of a dissertation or thesis immediately upon creation of the work, and no notice of copyright or formal registration is necessary.  Students are directed to the article entitled New Media, New rights, and Your New Dissertation, by Kenneth Crews. The U.S. Office of Copyright web page also provides extensive information on all aspects of copyright law.  

Although notice of copyright and formal registration are not necessary, we do suggest that authors of theses and dissertations provide such notice.

At CUA, the author may place notice of copyright on the title page of the thesis or dissertation. This can be accomplished simply by adding the word or symbol for copyright, the name of the student, and the year, e.g. “Copyright, Jane Doe 2007” or “©  Jane Doe 2007” at the bottom of the title page. See the Dissertation/Thesis Handbook for formatting instructions.

Students at CUA are advised that copyright applies to all theses and dissertations, symbol or no, and to consult and follow copyright law when using materials created by others. For information on when use of someone else’s material may be used  without permission under the “fair use" doctrine, see Your Copying Rights Under Copyright Law. If you decide that the “fair use” doctrine may not apply to your proposed use, then you need to obtain permission from the copyright owner. The Kenneth Crews guide referred to above discusses when permission is needed, and contains a sample permission letter.  

Registration of Your Copyright 

We also recommend registration of copyright with the U.S. Copyright Office. Registration is required before an infringement lawsuit may be filed, and it grants the author the right to receive statutory damages and attorney’s fees in an infringement action. When you publish your dissertation, ProQuest can, for an additional fee, file the copyright registration forms for you. The dissertation author authorizes ProQuest to register the copyright by filling out and signing the appropriate section on the publication agreement form that s/he submits with the approved dissertation.

The author may also register the thesis or dissertation copyright directly with the U.S. Copyright Office. See the copyright registration page on at the Copyright Office for information.

 

Publishing Your Dissertation and Your Copyright

 

The dissertation publishing agreement which the student signs with ProQuest grants ProQuest the following rights:

• The non-exclusive right to reproduce and distribute the dissertation in and from microform
• The non-exclusive right to reproduce and distribute the dissertation in and from an electronic format
• The non-exclusive right to reproduce and distribute the abstract in any format in whole or in part

What this means is that the student retains ownership of the copyright to the dissertation, and is free to grant the above listed rights to any other party. What the student would not be able to do is grant another party an “exclusive” right to reproduce and publish the dissertation.  

The Catholic University of America and Your Dissertation/Thesis Copyright

The University makes no claims of ownership to the student’s dissertation or thesis. As a condition of matriculation, the University reserves the right to make copies of dissertations or theses as needed for the academic or archival purposes of the institution. See Section XII of the Doctoral Degree Policy.

Extensive materials regarding copyright are also available on the Office of General Counsel web page. The Office of General Counsel is also available to answer questions concerning copyright.  The Office of General Counsel can be reached at extension 5142.  Questions about the process of submitting the dissertation should be directed to the Office of the Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies at extension 5247.

 

 

 updated 9.27.06
links updated 6/5/08 rab

mlo fixed broken link 3/19/09