It is common for authors to transfer copyright ownership in their publications to the publisher as part of the publishing agreement.  While you may retain certain usage rights within this agreement, these will be much more limited that if you retain the copyright yourself.

The rights you retain can vary, based on:

• the publisher (and even the journal or proceedings)
• whether there is open-licensing involved
• what you plan to do with, and where you plan to use, the publication.

You should always read your publishing agreement and double-check what you are allowed to do with your publication once copyright is transferred.  Have a question?  Contact the Copyright Advisor

Want to retain more rights?  It may be worth checking out the SPARC Author Addendum, which can allow authors to adjust their publishing agreements.

The webinar video below covers what you should know about your rights for research and publishing.  You can watch similar videos in our Copyright, licensing and open access for research playlist.

Open access is important to help improve the visibility and impact of research, increase citation rates, and more. Open access works within copyright, making research available to those who may not be able to access subscription content, including researchers at other institutions and the community.

View our Quick Guide to Open Access Publishing Options (PDF).

Researchers can deposit their publications in our institutional repository NOVA to assist with meeting funding mandates around open access. Contact the Scholarly Publications team for assistance.

The Library has negotiated Read and Publish agreements and discounts with major publishers. Options for open licensing offered by each publisher within these agreements are detailed in our Read & Publish licensing guide (PDF). The University also has an Article Processing Charge (APC) Fund to support open access publishing in high quality journals.

To learn more about open access, check out our Guide to open research. To learn more about publishing using a Creative Commons licence, see our page on Open licensing.

The video below covers what you should know about open access. You can watch similar videos in our Copyright, licensing and open access for research playlist.

Most material is copyright unless otherwise noted. Just because something is made available online (whether for free or by subscription) does not mean that you are able to take it and reuse it without permission. Scholarly citation practices do not cover reuse of third-party copyright material in a thesis or publication - permission or a licence will need to be sought.

Making third-party copyright material available without permission risks infringement and potential penalties under the Copyright Act. To avoid infringement, copyright material should be used:

• under an exception in the Copyright Act
• under licence
• with permission from the copyright owner (preferably in writing)
• following an requirements or restrictions from the points above.

Need to keep track of copyright materials used in a project or thesis? Access our Copyright Checker spreadsheet.

The webinar video below covers what you should know about reuse of materials in research. You can watch similar videos in our Copyright, licensing and open access for research playlist.

There may be times that you wish to make new use of material from your previous research. It is important to note that while you may have created the material involved, you may no longer hold the copyright (see Publishing and copyright above). This means that you may not be able to reuse your material in the way you need to, unless you have been granted the right to do so under your publishing agreement.

As an example, Sage's Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines allow for authors to make use of their final contribution "in a book authored or edited by [them], at any time after the contribution’s publication in the journal", as long as appropriate credit is provided to the original article. Other publishers may make similar allowances for this complete reuse of a work after seeking permission, e.g., via completion of an online form.

Depending on your publishing agreement, where you have transferred copyright you may need to seek permission from the publisher for reuse of even a small part of a work  (e.g., a figure or a table).  Many journals/publishers make this permissions process easy for authors through the use of online forms for copyright clearance agencies such as the Copyright Clearance Center (aka CCC) or PSClear. To use these services you will need to create an account, which can be used to manage and access your clearances. Many publishers allow authors reuse of small amounts of material at no cost, either via their internal policies or through being a signatory to the STM Permissions Guidelines.

Where you have retained copyright or have published under a Creative Commons licence, you will usually have more reuse options. To learn more about publishing and reuse under Creative Commons, see our page on Open licensing.

If you have created figures, etc., that you are considering using in your research publication, but don't want to assign the copyright to a publisher, self-publishing this material first under an open licence may provide an avenue to help retain your copyright. You can then reproduce/cite this material with the licensing information (the latter is important to highlight ownership of the material).

Note that reuse of material in (or from) a thesis or dissertation may be treated differently to other research - see Theses and dissertations below for more information.

Have a questions about the above? The Copyright Advisor can help.

Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property (ICIP) refers to the rights that Indigenous peoples have in relation to all aspects of their heritage, knowledge and cultural expressions.

The University is committed to fostering a culture of value and respect for Indigenous people, cultures, worldviews, histories and experiences. To this end, the University has created its ICIP Protocol to assist with respectful engagement with Indigenous peoples and communities and their ICIP, in all aspects of the University's projects and activities. The Protocol is intended to give staff, students and the University's partners and collaborators the confidence to navigate ICIP issues with respect and care.

Accompanying the Protocol is a Community Guide that explains key legal issues and questions for communities to ask. It also includes tips and tools to help protect ICIP and has information on copyright, ownership and control of materials containing ICIP.

The table below highlights the main differences between copyright and ICIP. The Copyright Advisor is able to provide guidance if you have questions around use of ICIP in your research.

Research data is an interesting area for copyright. Much of what we see as ‘data’ – facts, names, numbers, etc. – is not protected by copyright, regardless of the effort involved in gathering it. But as ‘data’ is a broad term, there may be material that meets the minimum requirements for copyright protection, such as quotes/transcripts/text, images, sound clips, etc.

There may also be protection in how you express or use data. Generally, the more original the data(set), or creative the expression of data, the more likely you will have copyright protection. This can have complexities for the application of open licensing, such as Creative Commons, that is reliant on copyright. The CC0 public domain dedication tool or other licensing may be more appropriate for some data (PDF).

Where copyrightable data is taken from existing material, any copyright will most likely remain with the original owners and may limit the shareability of the data (see the tab below for more).

There are also usually other ‘copyright-like’ or ‘copyright-adjacent’ concerns with data, such as ownership and access, and considerations for privacy/anonymity or commercial-in-confidence. ‘Sui generis’ rights for databases (complex datasets) may also apply in some countries. Check out the Library’s Researcher Skills Toolkit for considerations around ownership, access, and more for data(sets).

Our guide to research data and copyright (PDF) has more on data and copyright, along with information for licensing open data.

There is no specific exception in the Act allowing for data mining, data scraping, or similar processes. There is an exception within 'fair dealing' in the Copyright Act for "Research or study" that may allow for certain usage of copyright material when conducting your research. This will depend on the process engaged and how (and how much) material is accessed and reproduced. Owners of databases and datasets may have a request process in place for (or a licensing option to cover) data mining – best practice is to investigate these avenues where available.

Fair dealing will most likely not cover reproduction of copyright material in a publication, thesis, etc., resulting from any data mining or similar process that occurs within your research. Where you are directly reproducing or adapting copyright material you should always seek clearance/permission from the copyright owners.

Use of scraped online data for training generative AI is still, at time of writing, considered to be a potentially infringing use.

To learn more about fair dealing, read the guide to Fair dealing vs. fair use (PDF).

Our guide to research data and copyright (PDF) has more information on data and copyright.

Interested in learning more about research and copyright?  Check out the videos in our Copyright, licensing and open access for research playlist.

Conferences can be complex for copyright as there can be different elements at play, such as:

• variance in international copyright
• what research outputs are in-play (paper vs. poster vs. presentation)
• streaming and/or recording affecting use of third-party copyright materials
• institutional policy and branding requirements.

The webinar video below covers what you should know about copyright and conferences.  You can watch similar videos in our Copyright, licensing and open access for research playlist.

The University of Newcastle requires all research postgraduates to deposit a digital version of their thesis in our institutional repository NOVA.  Learn more about depositing your thesis.

Scholarly citation practices do not cover reuse of third-party copyright material in a thesis or dissertation - permission (or a licence) will need to be sought.  Our guide to Copyright in your digital thesis (PDF) has more information.

Need to keep track of copyright materials used in your thesis? Access our Copyright Checker spreadsheet.

The webinar video below covers what you should know about theses and copyright.  You can watch similar videos in our Copyright, licensing and open access for research playlist.

Copyright considerations for NTROs can be different to research publications such as articles and conference papers:

• Is the output stand-alone or part of another research output? (e.g., a visual representation of someone else's data)
• How are any third-party materials being used? (e.g., a sculpture covered in images from magazines)
• What type of copyright or trade-marked materials are you wanting to use? (e.g., company logos in a report)
• How is the NTRO being represented, and copyright/ownership in these representations? (e.g., someone else taking the photograph of your output).

Have a question about NTROs and copyright?  Contact the Copyright Advisor.

Our institutional repository NOVA may be able to help you promote your NTRO - reach out to the Scholarly Publishing team.

The webinar video below covers what you should know about research and copyright. You can watch similar videos in our Copyright, licensing and open access for research playlist.