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Library Subject Guides

Copyright: a Practical Guide

Protecting and licensing your work

Your work = your copyright

You automatically own the copyright in any work you create, until you transfer or sell it.  Unless... your work was created in the course of your employment, in which case copyright belongs to your employer. 

Staff should note that "the University does not assert ownership of copyright in the following, unless specifically commissioned by the University: i. Books and articles (including journalism); ii. Lectures; iii. Teaching materials (except for online learning and distance learning courses); iv. Artistic works; v.  Musical compositions; vi. Films created as part of professional practice" (Regulation 12.2.2).

While your work is unpublished  (e.g. coursework, a musical composition, a private letter or photo album), no-one has the right to reproduce any part of it without your permission.  Even material you have shared online remains protected by copyright,  although other people may 'quote' from it, providing they credit you as the source.  It's likely that your host service (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc)  will assert some rights to re-use your material:  check the Terms of Use.

Icon depicting a hand held microphoneWhen you speak or perform in front of an audience, no-one has the right to distribute a recording of your performance without your consent (which may be covered by your terms of employment).  However, the person or organisation responsible for the production of the recording will own the copyright.  Ensure you understand what will happen to the recording before you consent, and keep a copy of any written agreement for reference.

Unlike a patent or trademark,  in the UK it is not necessary to register in order to acquire legal protection for your copyright.

The University of York's Research and Knowledge Exchange Contracts office offers advice about registering and protecting other aspects of your intellectual property, including patents, trademarks and design rights.

Research Publications and Open Access policy

York Open Access logoThe University of York Research Publications & Open Access Policy, introduced in March 2023, states that manuscripts of scholarly articles created by members of staff (including original research articles, review articles, and articles published in a conference proceedings) will by default be made publicly available in an open access repository (such as the York Research Database) under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.

This policy recognises that researchers own the initial copyright to the manuscripts that they create as part of their research and that it is not necessary for an author to sign over their copyright or grant an exclusive licence to a publisher in order for their work to be published or disseminated.

This policy does not apply to other types of work, for example books, chapters, datasets, software or teaching materials, but it strongly encourages authors to make these as openly available as possible, as early as possible. The policy also strongly encourages postgraduate researchers to follow the same principles.

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Further guidance on how to comply with this policy and how it benefits your research is provided in our Research Publications and Open Access Policy Guide 

Creative Commons for researchers

Creative Commons heart iconCreative Commons licences work alongside existing copyright to let other people know what they can do with your work without having to ask your permission.

Our Creative Commons for Researchers Practical Guide covers the range of Creative Commons legal tools available and the benefits and considerations for both creators and users of licensed works.

Publishers

Illustration of hands exchanging a receipt for a bank note, representing a document being exchanged for moneyPublishers may ask you to transfer your copyright or agree to an exclusive licence to distribute the work (there may be little practical difference between such agreements, even if the work is to be published open access - see this July 2022 blog post from cOAlition S).

You should always check the terms of your publishing agreement so that you understand what rights you retain as the author of the work, for instance: 

  • Most scholarly publishers allow authors to deposit a version of their work (e.g. an accepted manuscript) in a subject-based or institutional repository such as White Rose Research Online. This can enable authors to meet their funder or employer's Open Access objectives.

  • You may be able to retain the right to distribute your work to students or research colleagues.

  • Your publisher may apply an open licence to your work (such as Creative Commons - see below), so that others can re-use it under certain conditions.

An increasing number of institutions and organisations are encouraging their authors to request an amendment to the publisher's copyright agreement which allows authors to retain more rights to their work. The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resource Coalition (SPARC) have further information about retaining rights to your work. This includes an addendum that can be added to your publisher’s copyright agreement to request the retaining of rights.

Funders such as Wellcome whose policies align with Plan S, the Europe-wide initiative for full and immediate open access to research outputs, encourage authors to retain their copyright and require accepted manuscripts to be made open access under a Creative Commons licence. For more information on this see our Funder OA Policies web pages.


If you have created a profile on a scholarly network such as Academia.edu or ResearchGate, it's unlikely that your publisher will permit you to upload the published version of your work, unless it has an open licence.  See the guidance for Researchers for more information.

You are also potentially infringing copyright if you share the published version of your paper privately in response to an unsolicited request, although "the legal risks... seem to be very low" (Implementing Open Access, Jisc 2015).

Further reading

Copyright User dot org organisational logo CopyrightUser.org is an independent educational resource targeted at content creators and students, with support from several UK universities. Guidance includes how to Licence and Exploit your Work.

The UK's Intellectual Property Office also provides Guidance for copyright owners on how to grant a licence for, sell or market their work.

Further help

Question mark iconYou can contact the Open Research Team if you have any further questions about protecting and licensing your work that are not covered by this guide.