All material on the ADS website is protected by copyright. The vast majority of our data collections are supplied to us by depositors who licence us to distribute and preserve data on their behalf. This non-exclusive ADS Deposit Agreement specifies the conditions under which we can distribute and preserve data, however, it does not transfer ownership of copyright. This page explains how to identify copyright holders and reuse and access licences within different ADS resources.

Data Archives

All ADS archive collections state the copyright holder and reuse licence information on the left hand side of each collection page, as outlined in red in the image below. The full reuse licence can be read by following the link within this section of the archive page.

The most common reuse and access licences used for ADS collections are the ADS Standard Terms of Use and Access and the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. Examples of both of these licences are shown in the images below.

 

 

 

 

 

Other licences can be used that more strictly limit what you can do with the archived data. Before using data from any archive you should read the relevant licence to ensure you can use the data for the purposes you intend.

In some instances, individual files within a data collection may have a different copyright holder. When this is the case the copyright holder will be clearly identified on the files downloads page. An example of different copyright permission can be found within the Object information within The Charles Archive.

ArchSearch Records

Access to and use of ArchSearch records are subject to the conditions set by a Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International Licence. The copyright holder for ArchSearch records is the Creator or Publisher. This information can usually be found under the ‘People Involved’ section found in each ArchSearch record.

ADS Library Items

Use of the ADS Library as a service falls under the ADS Website Terms and Conditions. When a file is available for download the copyright is generally held by the author(s) of that publication. In some cases this may be an organisation(s) rather than an individual.

The most common reuse licence used for items available from the Library are the ADS Standard Terms of Use and Access or the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. 

You can find which reuse licence the downloadable item falls under in the Licence Type field within the relevant Library Record. An example of a Creative Commons License type can be found within a record of an article from the journal Archaeologia Aeliana.

If no reuse licence is clearly stated the item will as standard be subject to the ADS Standard Terms of Use and Access.