Copyright is the legal right of creators to control reproduction, distribution, public display, and preparation of derivative works of original expression fixed in a tangible medium, subject to exceptions and transfers under applicable law.

Intellectual property encompasses copyright and related rights in scholarly outputs, including literary works, figures, software, databases where protected, and trademarks in names and logos used in connection with publications and profiles.

Licensing is permission granted by a rights holder for specified uses. Licenses may be exclusive or non-exclusive, limited in scope, territory, and duration. Inquisra's publication license is non-exclusive unless a separate written agreement states otherwise.

Publication rights are the permissions needed to make a work available through scholarly channels — hosting, indexing, discovery, and preservation. Moral rights, where recognized by law, include attribution and integrity; authors should be credited and works should not be misrepresented.

Inquisra does not claim copyright ownership in submitted or published scholarly works as a condition of using the Platform. Researchers who own their manuscripts retain that ownership when they publish on Inquisra, subject only to the licenses they grant as described in this charter and the Terms of Service.

Ownership may be shared among co-authors, assigned to employers under work-for-hire or contractual rules, or affected by institutional intellectual property policies at universities and research institutes. Authors warrant that they have authority to submit work and grant required licenses.

When organizations publish reports through organization accounts, the organization or designated rights holder must confirm ownership or authorization. Inquisra respects documented rights-holder designations and institutional agreements presented through authorized representatives.

This license enables Inquisra to store manuscripts and files in private workflow storage, publish approved works to public or restricted surfaces, generate discovery metadata and DOI-compatible identifiers where configured, include works in search results, create backups and archival copies, and display trust, review, and correction information alongside publications.

The license is non-exclusive: authors may publish similar versions elsewhere, deposit in repositories, and exercise other rights consistent with any separate agreements they hold — unless they have granted exclusive rights elsewhere that conflict.

The publication license does not transfer copyright ownership. It is a limited operational grant distinct from sale, assignment, or exclusive publisher agreements outside Inquisra.

Authors may reuse their work in future research, teaching, conference presentations, professional portfolios, and grant applications unless they have separately granted exclusive rights that restrict such uses.

Preprints and author-accepted manuscripts may be shared on personal websites, institutional repositories, and subject repositories where permitted by funder policy, institutional rules, and any external journal agreements — independent of Inquisra publication.

Authors should verify embargo periods, exclusive licenses, and funder public-access mandates before parallel distribution. Inquisra publication does not automatically prohibit external sharing unless authors select terms or external agreements that impose restrictions.

Institutional policies may claim ownership or license interests in works created within employment scope, using institutional resources, or under sponsored research agreements. Government and industry funders may impose public-access, data-sharing, or invention-disclosure obligations.

Collaborative research agreements may allocate rights among partners. Authors are responsible for obtaining necessary institutional approvals and honoring sponsor terms before submission.

Inquisra may cooperate with authorized institutional representatives on rights inquiries, takedown requests supported by legal documentation, and integrity matters without adjudicating employment disputes.

Third-party content includes figures, photographs, tables, extended quotations, survey instruments, datasets governed by restrictive terms, software libraries under incompatible licenses, and multimedia from external sources.

Authors must secure written permission where required, use material under applicable licenses such as Creative Commons or open data terms, or rely on fair use or fair dealing only where they have legal basis in their jurisdiction.

Misattributed or unlicensed third-party content may require correction, removal of affected material, or withdrawal. Repeat infringement may result in account sanctions.

Open access makes scholarly work freely readable online with appropriate reuse terms defined by the selected license. Authors may choose access models offered at submission when multiple options are available.

Repository deposits — institutional, disciplinary, or funder-mandated — complement platform publication. Authors remain responsible for complying with duplicate-publication and version-of-record policies across venues.

Open access does not eliminate disclosure, integrity, or peer review obligations. Review labels indicate scrutiny received independent of access model.

Creative Commons licenses signal permitted reuse — for example, attribution-only (CC BY), attribution-noncommercial (CC BY-NC), or attribution-sharealike (CC BY-SA). Each imposes different obligations on reusers.

Authors should understand that CC licenses are generally irrevocable for already-published material under the chosen terms. License selection should align with funder mandates and institutional policy.

Inquisra displays selected license identifiers on publication metadata when authors designate them. Default publication on Inquisra operates under the platform publication license and copyright ownership framework unless a CC or other license is explicitly applied.

Publications must list all authors who meet authorship criteria. Contributor roles — conceptualization, methodology, software, writing, funding acquisition — should be credited where discipline norms and platform fields support them.

Citations and acknowledgements must credit prior research, data sources, software, and funding. Persistent identifiers such as ORCID, DOIs, and dataset identifiers strengthen attribution across systems.

Removing or altering attribution without author approval violates integrity and may infringe moral rights where recognized.

Preservation includes secure storage, backups, identifier resolution, and retention of publication metadata, review labels, correction notices, and version timelines. Withdrawn or retracted works remain documented rather than silently erased except where law requires removal.

The publication license authorizes preservation activities necessary to maintain access and scholarly memory. Preservation does not grant Inquisra ownership of underlying intellectual property.

Authors benefit from durable URLs, exportable metadata, and stable citation targets for their published work.

Rights holders may submit infringement notices identifying the work, the material claimed to infringe, location on the Platform, and contact information with good-faith statements. Inquisra may temporarily restrict access to disputed material during investigation.

Users may submit counter-notices where they believe material was wrongly removed, subject to legal requirements. Repeat infringers may face account termination.

Bad-faith or fraudulent complaints may be rejected and referred for appropriate action. Appeals of copyright enforcement decisions follow documented review channels.

Corrections fix errors while preserving the publication; errata clarify specific elements. Retractions address serious unreliability, misconduct, or legal barriers to continued distribution. Expressions of concern signal ongoing investigation.

Retracted works remain visible with retraction notices where policy and law permit, preserving scholarly memory. Licensing for preservation supports retention of retraction metadata and version history.

Authors retain moral interests in accurate attribution even when works are retracted; retraction notices should be factual and proportionate.

Copyright protection for purely AI-generated material varies by jurisdiction and evolving law. Authors must not present AI-generated text, images, or data as solely human-created empirical work without disclosure.

When AI assists creation, authors verify accuracy, secure rights in underlying training or source constraints where relevant, and disclose material assistance. AI systems cannot be listed as authors.

Human accountability for licensing warranties applies to all submitted content regardless of tools used to produce it.

Educational use, research citation, short quotation, and figure reuse for commentary may be permitted under fair use, fair dealing, or similar exceptions depending on jurisdiction — or under Creative Commons terms when applied.

Derivative works and commercial reuse require rights holder permission unless license terms expressly allow them. Repository deposits should use appropriate version — preprint, accepted manuscript, or version of record — per funder and institutional policy.

Readers and third parties must respect license metadata displayed on Inquisra publications and seek permissions when uncertain.

The Platform is researcher-first infrastructure. Commercial operations — memberships, processing fees, and organization tools — do not require authors to surrender copyright. Enforcement targets infringement and misconduct, not legitimate scholarly sharing.

Inquisra cooperates with authors, institutions, and lawful rights holders while resisting arbitrary removal of integrity-related public records.

This charter will be reviewed as law, open science practice, and platform capabilities evolve.