Copyright

1. Do I own the copyright in my thesis or dissertation?

Yes. However, upon submission of your thesis or dissertation, you will be required to allow the University of Regina Library to post your thesis or dissertation in oURspace, the University of Regina's institutional repository, as well as permit Library and Archives Canada and Proquest to preserve and make your thesis available on the Internet and searchable databases. These licences clearly stipulate that you own the copyright to your thesis or dissertation, but that you have allowed "non-exclusive" use of your thesis to the University of Regina Library, Library and Archives Canada and Proquest.

2. I am writing a manuscript-style thesis. What do I need to know about copyright?

• You are responsible for acquiring written permission from any co-authors/copyright owners of any manuscript that you would like to include in your thesis and also to inform the co-authors/copyright owners of any modifications you intend to make to the manuscript when you use it in your thesis.
• The copyright owner may require payment in exchange for use of the manuscript and the student is responsible for that payment.
• On the first page or in the preface of each copyright-protected manuscript used in the thesis, please include a statement that the manuscript was used “under licence” or “with permission” from the copyright owner.
• If you would like to include a manuscript for which you are the sole author, you may still need to acquire copyright permission if you have transferred your copyright to the publisher or journal who has published (or will publish) the manuscript.
• The copyright permissions that you receive for including copyright-protected materials in your thesis should be included as appendices in your thesis.

3. Do I need copyright permission to put an image (e.g., photo, maps, diagram, figure) in my thesis or dissertation?

Up until the time that your thesis  or dissertation is added to oURspace, the University of Regina's institutional repository, it is considered a private research paper and images can be used without permission as long as they are properly cited and adhere to the university’s Fair Dealing Guidelines. However, once your thesis or dissertation is distributed through the oURspace, permission from the copyright holders of any images or figures used in your thesis or dissertation is required.

4. How do I determine who the copyright holder is and how do I go about getting permission from them?

The University of British Columbia's copyright website (see the "How to Obtain Permission" section) includes useful information for grad students about how to identify copyright holders and where to go to request copyright permission. The earlier that you can start the permission request process, the better, as copyright holders can be difficult to find or get a hold of and sometimes they take a long time to respond. If you require any assistance, please feel free to contact the Copyright and Scholarly Communications Librarian.

5. 5. What if I’m not granted copyright permission in time or the copyright fee being charged is too expensive?

If permission is not granted in time for you to submit your thesis or dissertation to oURspace (or if the copyright holder is asking for a fee that you decide not to pay), the image(s) for which clearance/permission was not received must be removed from your thesis or dissertation before it is submitted to oURspace. In the space where the image was removed, you would then add a statement indicating that the image was removed due to copyright restrictions and include an image description and full citation where the image can be found. Here is an example statement: “Figure 3 has been removed due to copyright restrictions. It was a diagram of the apparatus used in performing the experiment, showing the changes made by the investigating team. Original source: Wu, G. and Thompson, J.R. (2008) Effect of Ketone Bodies on Dairy Cattle. Biochem J. 255:139-144.” (This example citation was retrieved from The University of British Columbia’s copyright website, CC BY-SA 4.0)

6. Are there any types of images for which I don’t need to acquire copyright permission to include them in my thesis or dissertation?

Copyright permission would not be required for including the following types of images in your thesis:

1. An image for which you are the only copyright owner (e.g., an image that you created alone and for which you have not transferred copyright to a publisher or anyone else).
2. Images that are in the Public Domain (i.e., are no longer protected by copyright). Please note that “Public Domain” does not mean that anything publicly available on the Internet can be used without copyright permission. Most works on the Internet are protected by copyright and would require permission for being included in a thesis.
3. Images that have Creative Commons copyright licences.
4. Some Canadian federal government materials (e.g., materials protected by Crown copyright).

7. What about copying text into my thesis or dissertation? Do I need permission for including quotes in my thesis or dissertation?

With regard to copying text into your thesis or dissertation, permission should be acquired for use of long quotations or excerpts. A short quote that you would include in the body of your text would not require copyright permission and a block quotation would not necessarily require permission. There is no exact word count that is the maximum amount of text that could be used before permission is required. It would be advisable to err on the side of caution and seek permission for long quotations. If you are unsure about what constitutes a long quotation, you can consult with your thesis or dissertation advisor and the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research. Your citation style guidelines (e.g., APA, MLA, etc.) may include helpful information on this as well.

Content on this site has been adapted from the University of Saskatchewan Copyright website “Thesis Frequently Asked Questions” and is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Canada Licence. Based on information from the  University of Manitoba copyright website and the University of British Columbia copyright website.