Copyright

Copyright and the Repository

Content added to KEEP is governed by U.S. Copyright Law. All authors adding content retain ownership and copyright of their materials, and represent that they retain their rights to disseminate and reproduce their work through submission to KEEP when they agree to our Terms of Deposit.

While ASU Library strives to accurately represent the copyright status and reuse rights for content included in KEEP, we make no express or implied warranty to others who wish to use digital materials where the copyright status or reuse rights are unclear. Users are responsible for obtaining appropriate permission for materials to be reused. For questions about copyright, trademark or other rights, please contact Ask a Librarian.

Copyright Status

When considering the copyright status of works added to KEEP, there are two common scenarios:

1. Author Owns All Rights

Authors own full copyright to materials and can submit to KEEP.

2. Publisher Owns Some or All Rights

This occurs when authors sign an agreement with a publisher. Typically, such agreements may transfer some or all rights to the publisher. Publisher copyright policies determine if, and in what form, materials may be submitted to an institutional repository. The Copyright for Authors Library Guide provides more information about publishing agreements and negotiating rights in order to self-archive your work.

Most publishers allow the post-print article (defined as the post-peer reviewed version of the article that is accepted by the publisher for final publication) to be submitted to an institutional repository. You can review your publication agreement to determine what is allowed by your publishers, or check the JISC Open Policy Finder for a list of journal publishers' default archiving policies. These terms usually apply to different versions of a work:

  • Post-print: the final, revised version of an article after peer review but prior to publisher’s formatting.
  • Pre-print: the author’s version of the article before peer review.
  • Publishers PDF: the final, published version of an article.

Contact Researcher Support for assistance with publisher rights and policies

Student Scholarship

Students retain the copyright to their work but grant ASU and the ASU Library the non-exclusive rights to share and preserve their capstone projects, theses and dissertations as part of their final submission process with their program.

Rights and Reuse

To avoid confusion and encourage use, the ASU Library makes every effort to clearly articulate both the copyright status and conditions on reuse for all material in KEEP. The description for each work in KEEP will include:

  1. The copyright status of materials is identified in a Copyright Statement.
  2. Reuse permissions designate how others can reuse materials found in the repository.

Copyright Statement

A Copyright statement provides information about the copyright status of authored works. Within our repositories, these rights statements usually fall into three general categories: 

  1. In Copyright. 
  2. No Copyright.
  3. No Known Copyright. 

Since KEEP includes current works created by the ASU community, these works are "In copyright" with very few exceptions.

Reuse Permissions

When authors add their content to KEEP, they can give permission in advance to describe how others may reuse their work. Creative Commons licenses provide an international standard which empowers creators to give explicit permissions to users with guidelines for receiving attribution for their work. 

KEEP provides six non-commercial reuse licenses.

  1. Creative Commons Attribution
  2. Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial
  3. Creative Commons Attribution - ShareAlike
  4. Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - ShareAlike
  5. Creative Commons Attribution - NoDerivatives
  6. Creative Commons Attribution   NonCommercial   NoDerivatives

If you wish to reuse materials from KEEP, you must contact the author or creator for any reuse permissions that are not allowed by the assigned license.

Alternative Designations

KEEP offers two alternative reuse designations when regular Creative Commons licenses are not applicable.

  1. CC0 “No Rights Reserved”: CC0 enables scientists, educators, artists and other creators and owners of copyright- or database-protected content to waive those interests in their works and thereby place them as completely as possible in the public domain, so that others may freely build upon, enhance and reuse the works for any purposes without restriction under copyright or database law.
  2. All Rights Reserved: this statement indicates that the copyright holder reserves or holds all the rights provided by copyright law. The statement has no legal effect in any jurisdiction, but KEEP provides this option to clearly identify materials that should not be reused or redistributed without the express consent of the copyright holder. It is important to note that some use of materials with this designation may fall under Fair Use.

ASU Library recommends that users of KEEP materials include attribution as a matter of good scholarly practice and/or as required by the applicable Creative Commons License. A suggested citation is usually provided.