Protect / Share Your Work


Hamilton College Policies on Intellectual Property

Authors' Rights
  • Read contracts carefully and keep copies. Consider whether you want to retain some rights to use, re-use, archive and share your work more widely.
  • Consider publishing in an Open Access journal or depositing your original research data into an Open Data archive.

Open Access Resources
  • DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals
  • OpenDOAR - Directory of Open Access Repositories
  • Open Data Sites
  • ROARMAP - Registry of Open Access Repositories Mandatory Archiving Policies
  • RoMEO - a searchable database of publishers' policies regarding the self-archiving of peer-reviewed journal articles.
  • SHERPA - a group of UK institutions collaborating on Open Access projects.
  • SPARC - The Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition

Creative Commons License

With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow others to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit — and only on the conditions you specify.

U.S. Copyright Office Registration

All works are automatically protected by copyright at the time of creation. A copyright registration is not required, but is advised if you ever wish to bring a lawsuit for infringement of a U.S. work. Copyright does not protect names, titles, slogans, or short phrases. In some cases these may be protected as trademarks. For more information consult the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.