FAQ: Theses

Since John Cabot University is an American University in Rome, it falls under the Italian Copyright Law: Law for the Protection of Copyright and Neighboring Rights (Law No. 633 of April 22, 1941), and its later amendments, including the recent Legislative Decree No. 177 of November 8, 2021, on the Reception of the Directive (EU) 2019/790 of 17 April 2019 on Copyright and Related rights in the Digital Single Market. 

Like in other civil law-based countries, the Italian law in effect for John Cabot University regulates author's rights. It is slightly different than the copyright law, and covers:

• Moral Rights, connected to the author's personality, inextinguishable and not transferable (regarding authorship, work integrity, recall from commerce)
• Economic Rights, transferable and limited in time (regarding reproduction, publication, distribution, translation, public display). The assignment of economic rights depends on you. It can be partial, exclusive or non-exclusive, and requires a written agreement. Caution in transferring these rights is always recommended: you may still need them in the future, for several uses (to deposit your work in a repository, publish your work, distribute copies for teaching, create derivative works).

Copyright protection does not require any form of registration; it is effective as soon as your original work is fixed in a tangible medium.

However, to inform people about how they can use your work, you could take advantage of a Creative Commons (CC) license. There are several, from the most restrictive, which only permits sharing, to the most open, which allows creating derivative works.

As copyright owner, you must also grant that all the materials included in your thesis are not violating third-party copyrights. However, you may need to include published items like pictures, graphs, or art examples in your thesis. What can you do in such cases? 

• Use materials in the Public Domain
• Ask for permissions
• Include small quotes and low-resolution sounds and images:  Art. 70 of Law 633/1041 provides the right to cite, including small excerpts or low-resolution or "degraded" music and images from copyrighted works, as long as they are properly cited. For a detailed information on this aspect, in Italian, see the related chapter in the Guida al diritto d'autore edited by Giovanni Ammassa.

For more information:

• The Guida al diritto d'autore edited by Giovanni Ammassa is a very clear, regularly updated online manual on the Italian law. 
• Tesi di dottorato e diritto d'autore, a document developed by the Open Access Group of the Italian Conference of University Rectors, provides detailed guidelines for the open access publishing of PhD theses and dissertations.
• An unofficial English translation has also been made available by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).