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Presented by Christine Ross and Christy Shorey Prior to enactment of the Copyright Act in 1978, federal copyright protection, along with its requirements of registration and notice, only applied to published works; unpublished works were subject to common law copyright protection, which had no registration and notice requirement. As of the 1978 Copyright Act, unpublished works are subject to the same requirements and copyright terms as published works. In order to determine the copyright status of pre-1978 dissertations, then, one must decide whether dissertations were considered published or unpublished works under the former copyright law (Copyright Act of 1909). According to a new study by Gail Clement and Melissa Levine, the community of practice shows that dissertations deposited with a library or disseminated on microfilm were considered published.** The University of Florida, relying upon the strength and validity of this research, treats dissertations authored before Jan. 1, 1978, as published works subject to the pre-1978 law requirements of notice and renewal. **Clement, Gail and Melissa Levine. “Cop yright and Publication Status of Pre-1978 Dissertations: A Content Anal ysis Approach,” portal: Libraries and the Academy 11, No. 3 (2011): 813-829. DETERMINATION OF COPYRIGHT STATUS UNDER THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA RETROSPECTIVE DISSERATION SCANNING POLICY In-Copyright If published on or after January 1, 1978 If published between January 1, 1964—December 31, 1977 with a copyright mark If published between January 1, 1950—December 31, 1963 with a renewal of copyright Out-of-Copyright If published before January 1, 1923 If published before January 1, 1978 without inclusion of a copyright notice or mark If published between January 1, 1923 –December 31, 1949 without renewal of copyright UF Dissertation Tracking Form N P Dissertations deemed in-copyright: Diligent efforts made to locate copyright holder and provide notice of Libraries’ intent to digitize and make publicly available. If contact information cannot be found through diligent efforts, public notice posted on special RDS web site for 90 days (see image at right) Dissertations deemed out-of-copyright: Digitized and made available online for public access. If take-down request received from copyright holder and/ or initial copyright status determination is erroneous, public access will be removed.