Unpublished text usually belongs to the author(s), unless there is a different agreement governing the activities of the creator(s).
You need to verify the terms of your contracts and agreements to verify who owns the material you produce during your association with the University.
For example, Coventry University’s staff and students’ work usually belong to the University. Therefore, claiming ownership of such material would constitute a breach of contractual agreement with your employer.
Do not assume that you or your colleagues own the copyright of the material they create because their employer could own it.
Another factor for consideration is that once a publisher, including a website, reproduces text, the copyright’s ownership may change. For example, a publisher usually owns the copyright of the published version, which might be a book or a journal article.
In some cases, publishers will only own the published version, and the author will retain the copyright to the text, but this is under specific conditions (like embargoes and location of the material).
The author takes no responsibility for the content of this page, which is not intended as binding legal advice. The views are about copyright in the UK Higher Education sector context.
