You are the copyright owner of your thesis or dissertation, regardless of whether you choose to register it with the U.S. Copyright Office. As copyright owner, you have a bundle of rights, enumerated in the United States Copyright Law.
When submitting your thesis or dissertation, you are asked to agree to a license to grant the Texas Digital Library, UHCL, and your academic department "the non-exclusive rights to copy, display, perform, distribute and publish the content I submit to this repository...and to make the Work available in any format in perpetuity as part of a TDL, Institution or Department repository communication or distribution effort."
Non-exclusive rights allow us to archive, preserve, and make your work available but do not give us ownership over your work. You retain copyright of your work, and can still exercise all of your rights under copyright. Because the license is non-exclusive, you still have the right to publish the work yourself, or transfer exclusive rights to another publisher.
