Copyright and your research
As a researcher at LSE, the initial position is that you own the copyright in your research outputs. This position, together with the limited circumstances in which LSE or other parties may claim copyright, are outlined in section 2 of LSE’s Intellectual Property policy.
PhD researchers: copyright & your thesis
As author, you retain the copyright in your thesis (unless it is covered by one of the exceptions laid out in the School’s Intellectual Property policy). The policy also outlines that LSE retains the right to copy and use student created content for the purposes of research, teaching and other uses within the School. (See section 3.)
If you include 3rd party copyright materials within your thesis, you need to consider whether this content is available to use under licence (for example a Creative Commons licence), your use falls within exceptions to copyright law, or you need to seek permission from the rightsholder. When submitting your thesis, you will be asked to confirm that you have checked to make sure that it does not infringe other people’s copyright. There is further information on 3rd party copyright in the accompanying thesis submission guidance notes.
It is important to carry out these checks as most theses are made publicly available on LSE Theses Online. This transformation from exam script to published work means that the ‘illustration for instruction’ exception no longer applies to your use of 3rd party copyrighted work; you need to check that your use is covered by a different copyright exception or consider whether you need to apply for permission to include content.
Copyright and research data
Licensed Data Agreements
Sometimes in your research you may need to sign a special agreement for access to datasets from specific organisations. Often these agreements may include clauses which affect your intellectual property rights, eg, for future publication. These should be checked by LSE before signing (and/or be signed by an official signatory at LSE). Please send any special agreements to datalibrary@lse.ac.uk so they can be checked for you by experts: further information can be found on our Secure Data Access page.
Using data
Many pre-existing outputs that you may be working with as research data will be copyrighted, for instance where using archival, literary, social media, photos or image material. Equally, some datasets will attract database rights, where substantial effort has been made to organise and curate a set of datapoints.
In most instances, data can be used and copied under fair dealing, for non-commercial teaching or research purposes, or criticism or review, without infringing copyright, providing that the data source, distributor and the copyright holder are acknowledged. The UK Data Service have a useful page on how to cite datasets.
As with other forms of scholarly works and teaching materials covered by LSE’s Intellectual Property Policy, where research data is newly created, the staff or student creating the data is the original copyright holder.
Sharing and licensing your research data
If you want to or are required to share your data, you will need to be mindful of any copyright restrictions for any third-party data. Where using third-party data, funders encourage you to try and negotiate the rights to share the derived data eg, analysed data. You should give appropriate acknowledgement, via citation, for any existing data you use.
As part of sharing your own research data, you can assign the data a licence enabling you to set the terms of use for your data so others can clearly see what and what not they’re allowed to do with your data. As a minimum, most licenses require users to acknowledge you as owner of the data, and do not allow them to pass the work off as their own. You can utilise one of the Creative Commons licences, or create your own bespoke terms.
You can also licence your software, these licences typically cover both software itself as well as the underpinning source code. There are different options depending on how you want to make your software available. For help in choosing your licence we recommend using choose a license.
Preparing to publish
Our Publishing Advice Service provides guidance on author rights and signing a publishing agreement. Traditionally, when publishing in journals authors assign their copyright to the publisher; as copyright holder the publisher then decides how work is subsequently used. If you want to publish Gold Open Access, most publishers will assign a Creative Commons licence which clearly stipulates how others can reuse and share your work. Check the individual policy of your publisher/journal for more information.
If you wish to include 3rd party material in your work, you will need to check whether you need to obtain permission to include it. If the material is openly licensed or subject to one of the legal exemptions to copyright law, you will not need to seek permission. You should discuss this with your publisher during the publication process.
Detailed guidance on using 3rd party copyright within Open Access monographs and book chapters has been produced by Professor Emily Hudson, Professor Tanya Aplin and Clare Painter Associates. Although developed to support UKRI’s Open Access policy, this guidance is more widely applicable for those seeking to publish long form outputs OA.
If you have any queries about copyright and authors’ rights when preparing your work for publication, get in touch with the Library’s Open Research Librarian. The Research & Innovation division and Legal Team are also well positioned to advise on intellectual property considerations in relation to publication of your work.
3rd party copyright & presenting at conferences
If including other people’s work in your conference presentation, you need to have a clear legal basis for use. See Copyright Essentials for further information on re-use of 3rd party copyright. If you have any doubts, please contact us for assistance.
Rights Retention
Traditionally, upon publication, copyright in journal articles was assigned to publishers, limiting your rights to use the article after publication. The growth in the Open Access movement means that many articles are now available to read (and in some cases to re-use) in a way outlined in a Creative Commons licence. Rights Retention applies a Creative Commons licence to your work automatically upon publication and so allows you to reuse your publications in research and teaching and to make content publicly available. Rights Retention also ensures that you meet funder and Research Excellence Framework (REF) requirements.