Copyright for Researchers

Generally speaking, researchers own copyright over their research outputs. Copyright protection exists from the moment an output is produced that could be copied. Other researchers and users will need to ask permission before using your created work.

You may wish to add a Creative Commons licence to your work to give people permission in advance to use your work in certain ways.

Third party material refers to any material for which you do not own the copyright.

To use third party material in a research output (tables, maps, illustrations, photographs, etc.):

• You need to have permission from the copyright owner, or
• You need to be able to rely on provisions in the Copyright Act that allow you to use third party material without permission.

You do not need to seek permission if:

• There is a licence which permits you to use the work in the way you wish to use it e.g., a contract, web site conditions, Creative Commons licence, the copyright owner has explicitly waived copyright.
• You are the creator of the work but have signed copyright ownership over to a third party (such as a publisher) and you wish to use the work in a way that is permitted in the copyright transfer agreement (also known as a publishing agreement). As an example, the publisher may permit you to load an author accepted manuscript to your institutional repository.
• Your use is covered under fair dealing exceptions.
• You are including an insubstantial portion.
• Copyright in the work has expired.

Many publishers use RightsLink (Copyright Clearance Center) to handle permission requests for their copyright-protected content. RightsLink provides immediate quotes (fee for use) and could grant free of cost permission.

Acknowledge any third-party content that you use.