Protect Your Work
More About Copyright
Author Rights / Open Access
Hamilton College Policies on Intellectual Property
Author 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
- DOAB - Directory of Open Access Books
- DOAJ - Directory of Open Access Journals
- OpenDOAR - Directory of Open Access Repositories
- Open Data Sites
- Right to Research Coalition - College and university students advocating and educating for Open Access
- 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.
