Copyright: The essentials

All McGill students keep the copyright of their thesis, but with the Final Thesis Submission, they are required to agree to grant a non-exclusive licence with McGill Library and one with Library and Archives Canada via the myThesis submission platform. McGill Library and Library and Archives Canada (LAC) consider graduate theses important sources of original research and make them available in electronic form in open access. The license permits McGill University to make the thesis available in electronic form through McGill repository eScholarship@McGill and permits LAC to make the thesis accessible through the Theses Canada Portal.

By signing the licence, students simultaneously grant to McGill  and Library and Archives Canada "a non-exclusive, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty free license, for the full term of copyright protection, in respect of my thesis, to reproduce, convert, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, communicate and distribute, and loan, in paper form, in microform, electronically by telecommunication or on the internet, and/or any other formats as may be adopted for such use from time to time. I also authorize McGill University and Library and Archives Canada to sub-license, sub-contract for any of the acts mentioned."

Anyone seeking permissions to use material from McGill theses, must seek them directly from the author, as McGill Library does not hold any copyright in students' work.