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Copyright Ownership in SHAREOK

Submitting work to SHAREOK does not transfer copyright ownership. Authors consent to a non-exclusive distribution license which allows library staff to take the necessary steps to catalog and preserve the resource as well as make it available to read freely. Copyright is retained by the author unless the work has been previously published and copyright was transferred to the publisher. In many cases, publishers still allow authors to upload work to an institutional repository such as SHAREOK. Use of the work found in SHAREOK must qualify as Fair Use under U.S. Copyright law, unless a Creative Commons license is applied to the submission by the author. 

Creative Commons Licenses

If you are submitting work for which you are the sole copyright owner, you may choose to grant a Creative Commons license to your work at the time of submission. The type of Creative Commons license that you choose will dictate how others may use your work. Creative Commons Licenses are a legal framework that allows you to grant certain use permissions to works for which you own the copyright. It's important to know that Creative Commons Licenses are not an alternative to copyright law, and you do not give up your copyright by choosing to apply a Creative Commons License to your submission. Instead, you are providing a legally sound method to share your work more broadly and with more flexibility. The submission form will provide you with the following options to help you decide. For more information about Creative Commons Licenses, see the Creative Commons License guide.

  • I already know which Creative Commons license I want to apply: You will be presented with a list of seven options to select from which range in levels of restrictiveness. The first option in this list (CC0) is known as a public domain dedication mark. Only select the CC0 option if you wish to give up your copyright in order to donate your submission to the public domain. The other six options in this list are Creative Commons Licenses which do not alter your copyright ownership. 
  • I want to use the Creative Commons license chooser: SHAREOK will present you with questions to help you determine which Creative Commons license is best for you. 
  • I do not wish to apply a Creative Commons license at this time: No Creative Commons license will be applied.