Participating institutions are strongly encouraged, though not required, to apply a Creative Commons license to the finding aids they place in Archives West. In the absence of such a license, institutions retain copyright to the finding aids they place in the database.

Each participating institution shall be responsible for verifying copyright and/or fair use status and/or obtaining copyright permission prior to its placing or introducing any information, text, graphics or data into the database. Each participating institution agrees it shall be solely responsible for any loss, liability, or expense due to loading of copyrighted materials into the database by its employees or agents where such loading or subsequent use, viewing, printing, downloading, or recopying is alleged to be infringing. To the extent allowed by applicable state law, each member institution agrees to indemnify all other members for the actions covered in this paragraph.