Copyright Information

The Ohio State University Libraries (University Libraries) website provides online access to a wide variety of materials and digital collections in support of research and anytime, anywhere learning for The Ohio State University, for the state of Ohio, and for an ever-expanding community of world scholars.

Copyright

Works appearing on or accessible via the University Libraries website may be protected by copyright and are made available for research and educational purposes. In general, University Libraries does not own the copyright for materials from our collections and cannot grant copyright permissions for these materials.

The user is responsible for making a final determination of copyright status. If copyright protection applies, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder to reproduce, adapt, distribute, publicly display or publicly perform the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exceptions in the law. Works in the public domain are not protected by copyright and do not require permission to use.

Please cite The Ohio State University Libraries as the source of the material when using or reproducing materials from University Libraries collections.

Creative Commons License 

Most works appearing on the University Libraries website that were created by University Libraries faculty and staff are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. This includes handouts, instructional materials, Research Guides content, and administrative, procedural, or policy documents.

To use materials from the University Libraries website under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license, you must credit The Ohio State University Libraries as the source of the material(s), include the CC BY 4.0 license information, and indicate if changes were made to the material(s). Please see How to attribute a Creative Commons licensed work for more information about how to comply with the requirements of the CC BY 4.0 license.

The CC BY 4.0 license does not apply to:

  • works for which University Libraries does not own the copyright (or does not have permission to sublicense), such as:
    • materials from University Libraries collections. 
    • traditional scholarly works by University Libraries faculty (blogs and exhibit work may belong to this category, and may be explicitly excluded from the CC BY 4.0 license). 
  • works in the Public Domain. For more information about the Public Domain, please visit our page on Public Domain Day.
  • photographs that contain easily identifiable images of faculty, staff, or students.
  • proprietary software.
  • trademarks and logos.

Contact Us

If you have questions or information about the copyright status of materials on the University Libraries website, please contact us and include a link to the relevant material for our reference. Contact information for some of the larger collections is available below; if you are not sure which collection to contact, please send your inquiry to University Libraries Copyright Services.

Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum (BICLM)
Contact BICLM -- View the BICLM digital collection

Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center Archives (Polar Archives)
Contact the Polar ArchivesView the Polar Archives digital collection

Hilandar Research Library (HRL)
Contact HRLView the HRL digital collection

Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee Theatre Research Institute (TRI)
Contact TRIView the TRI digital collection

The Knowledge Bank (KB)
Contact the KBView the KB collection

University Archives
Contact University ArchivesView the University Archives digital collection

Learn More

Visit the Copyright Services website to learn more about copyright, including copyright basics, fair use, author's rights, using materials, and more.

Reporting Suspected Copyright Infringement on Ohio State Websites

Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, if you find material on an Ohio State hosted website that you think might infringe copyright or you think that your copyrighted work is being infringed on an Ohio State website, you may contact the DMCA Agent or call 614-688-HELP (4357) to request that the item(s) be removed.