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Copyright and sensitive material in your thesis

Your copyright

Copyright provides legal protection to original works once recorded or fixed in some form, and the copyright owner has exclusive rights for the use and distribution of the protected work, with certain exceptions.

Student ownership of copyright in your own work is outlined in the University’s Intellectual Property (IP) Policy.

By depositing your work in the Repository, you agree to the University licensing your work under the terms outlined in the Symplectic Deposit Agreement.

Third party copyright

An awareness of copyright is important from the outset of your research as you will inevitably reproduce or adapt the work of other people and organisations in your thesis or publications.

Copyright held by another person or organisation is known as third party copyright.

Further information is available in the E-theses and copyright guide.

See also the FAQ What is third party copyright and when can I include it in my thesis?

Sensitive or personal material

Sensitive material includes photographs of identifiable people, personal information including : full name, contact details, email addresses, signatures, or material which is commercially sensitive. For a full list of data that is classed as personal data, see the ICO guidance.

You must seek permission to include sensitive material in your thesis. A person may choose to withdraw permission at any time. For more details, see the FAQ What is sensitive material and when can I include it in my thesis?

Before depositing your thesis, consider your own personal data and remove any signatures, personal contact details and student identification details as necessary.

Licensing

Theses deposited in the University’s Open Access (OA) Repository are available under a Creative Commons CC-BY licence. This licence allows for all forms of copying and re-use as long as the original work is correctly acknowledged.

CC licensing is irrevocable and you should consider before depositing your work whether the open CC BY licence meets your needs.

Creative Commons (CC) offers a range of licences and further details are available on our CC licensing webpage.

To discuss applying an alternative CC licence to your thesis, please contact theses@leedsbeckett.ac.uk.

If you have included a CC licensed third party copyright work in your thesis, you can check whether the licence is compatible with the Repository’s CC BY licence using the CC License Compatibility Checker.

It is important to read the terms of a CC licence carefully, particularly as there are several versions of each licence. Licences earlier than version 4.0 have different terms and less opportunity to correct mistakes, for example if a work is incorrectly attributed.

There are copyright holders and organisations who seek out instances of misuse of a CC licence in order to demand payment in damages, even if the misuse was unintentional. To avoid the threat of litigation, be very careful to adhere exactly to the requirements of the licence.

Deposit checklist

Students need to confirm that they have read the relevant policies.

Please refer to the Deposit Checklist.