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Copyright

This guide provides copyright information and links, but not legal opinion, which are relevant to the University community

Publishing your Research Material

  • You have exclusive rights under the Copyright Act to publish and communicate your work
  • Be aware of your responsibilities
  • Protect your work

Assigning or Licensing your Copyright

Copyright can be assigned, licensed, given away, sold, left by will, or passed on like any other property. (See A short guide to copyright, p. 21-22)

Assigning copyright is done in writing and this often happens in publishing agreements (such as when a journal publishes an article you have written). Copyright is also frequently assigned in funding agreements. Therefore do not sign any agreements unless you are fully aware of the copyright implications. 

Licensing grants specified rights to the licensee. For example, with a conference paper, the copyright is normally licensed to the conference organisers so that they can reproduce the paper.

See UC's Intellectual Property Policy.

Check Creative Commons licences.

Checking your Publishing Agreement

When publishing your research, check the terms of your publishing agreement for restrictions such as:

  • Can you still use your research materials in teaching, conference presentations and lectures?
  • Can you use them for other scholarly works or professional activities?
  • Can you place a version or an abstract of your research material in the UC Research Repository?

If you are not comfortable with the terms of your publishing agreement, then consider requesting that an author addendum or written permission from the publisher to use your research for a particular purpose.

Add a Copyright Statement

It is a good idea to add a copyright statement to your work e.g.

© 2012 John Smith

or a copyright notice

This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), no part may be reproduced by any process, nor may any other exclusive right be exercised, without the permission of (name and address of copyright owner and the year in which the work was made).

(see Australian Government Intellectual Property Manual, p. 89)

Open Access

Open access (OA) is a relatively new model of scholarly communication. It has the benefit of allowing "instant worldwide visibility" for your research work.

There are 2 options:

  • "Green" OA - involves self-archiving e.g. in university repository (see UC Research Repository box on this page) or some other central repository.
  • "Gold" OA - publishing in open access journals i.e. "journals that use a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access" (DOAJ).

(see Ways to provide open access to your work, "Gold" open access publishing)

Check:

thesis

Thesis x8 + 1 by anthonycramp (Anthony Cramp) under a CC BY 2.0 licence

UC Research Repository

Is your work eligible to go into the UC Research Repository?

If you answer 'yes' to the following:

  • You were a UC staff member or adjunct at the time the work was created
  • Your work was one of these:-
  1. Research work expressed in the following categories - journal articles, conference papers, refereed designs, patents, creative works, etc.
  2. UC theses

...contact Research Repository staff for more details.