Copyright at NPS

Whether you (the author) or your employer owns the copyright to your work will be determined by the terms of your employment agreement with your employer. If you are on a US government contract you may or may not have copyright in your work (it may be considered a US government work for which there is no copyright available in the US). We suggest you check with your employer and local General Counsel for guidance BEFORE you file your capstone/dissertation/thesis.  

NPS students and their faculty advisors sign thesis/dissertation/capstone release agreements that permit NPS-student authored works to be distributed to NPS and DOD websites in accordance with the security classification(s) and distribution statement(s) selected by the author(s).  

In the case of non-US government works, all other rights are reserved by the copyright owner.  Reuse generally requires permission of the copyright holder, fair use exemptions, or must be in accordance with a Creative Commons license selected by the rights-holder. 

Students enrolled in CHDS programs hail from a variety of US federal, state and local governments.  

There are important differences among these groups with respect to copyright. 

Whether you (the author) or your State/local government employer owns the copyright to your work will be determined by the terms of your employment agreement with your employer.  We suggest you check with your employer or local General Counsel for guidance BEFORE you file your capstone/dissertation/thesis.