There are two sides to copyright in academic research and publication:
- Your rights in the copyrighted works you are creating, such as dissertations, scholarly articles, and books
- The rights of other authors or creators in the copyrighted works you are using.
In addition, contracts and licensing play an important role. Scholars and graduate students sign contracts in the form of deposit and publication agreements:
- With Rutgers and ProQuest when depositing theses and dissertations through EDT Administrator
- With publishers when signing publication agreements for scholarly articles and books
Deposit agreements and publication agreements are legal contracts. You should read your contracts carefully, understand them, make careful decisions in negotiating them, and retain copies of them for future use.
In addition, use of third-party works in academic publication involves understanding the licenses associated with those works.