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All Adler University students are required to submit a copy of their thesis or dissertation for publication in ProQuest. You are personally responsible for ensuring that your thesis complies with the Canadian Copyright Act by obtaining copyright permission to use third-party material such as figures, maps, diagrams, photographs, and long quotations in your thesis. By submitting your thesis for publication you are confirming that you have obtained any necessary copyright permissions.
This guide is designed to help you understand your responsibilities, and provide resources to help you obtain copyright permissions.
1. It's good scholarly practice.
Copyright law does not protect ideas, it protects the expression of those ideas. It is obvious that in a scholarly context that you must cite the sources of ideas contained in your work. It is no less necessary to ensure that, if you are incorporating someone else's work into your work (whether course materials or research) you do so legally.
2. There may be legal consequences if you don't.
If you publish material in your thesis without obtaining copyright permission, you are opening yourself up to a variety of potential consequences. If the copyright owner informs ProQuest, Library and Archives Canada or Adler University that you have used copyrighted material without permission, your thesis will be removed from these databases, and your work will no longer be available to the scholarly community. The copyright owner may choose to take you to court and sue for damages.
3. Employers expect you to be aware of copyright.
Understanding your copyright responsibilities and rights is essential to being a competent digital citizen. Employers expect that staff members understand the Internet, digital best practices and legal obligations. Knowing about copyright will help ensure that you don't get yourself (and your employer) into legal trouble.
4. Copyright doesn't just protect other people's works; it protects yours as well.
Copyright protection applies to works that you create, as soon as the works are created. There is no need to register one's copyright in order for your work to be protected. Knowing the limits of what you can do with others' work will inform you about what rights others have (and don't have) to use your work.
This guide has been used and adapted with permission from Royal Roads University Copyright Information Guide by Kimberley Budd and from UBC's Theses and Dissertations, (CC BY-SA 4.0) license
