RSP - Publishing Support

Copyright

Please note that we are not qualified to provide 'legal advice' around copyright and intellectual property. The information provided here is for guidance and information purposes only.

What is Copyright?

Copyright law grants exclusive rights to creators of original works of authorship. Copyright applies automatically at the point of creation, without any need for the copyright to be declared or registered anywhere; however, the work must exist in a tangible medium - i.e. your work is copyrighted, but you cannot copyright an idea. The precise laws around copyright vary between countries, but typically the copyright extends from the point of creation up to 70-100 years after the creator's death.

It is possible to waive your copyright in order to allow the work to be shared, or you can can apply a Creative Commons licence to your work to retain copyright but allow sharing. More information about copyright can be found on our Creative Commons and Open Licences LibGuides Page.

Third Party Copyright

In the process of preparing your own publication or your thesis, you may find that you want to reuse materials from other work. However, you need to be sure that you are allowed to reuse the material before you can share it in your own work. This is particularly important when your work is being published, as the publisher will expect you to clear permissions to reuse materials, and you may be held accountable if you reuse material that you are not allowed to. It is also important to consider when putting together your thesis, as the material may have to be redacted in the open version shared on Pure if you don't have permission to reuse it.

For more information on copyright in terms of reusing materials for teaching and learning, see our Copyright LibGuide.

What can you reuse without seeking permission:

How do you go about seeking permission

If you need to permission to reuse material, there are four steps to requesting a permission:

	1 - Identify the rights holder(s): This is usually where the copyright statement (e.g. © name) is useful for identifying who holds the permission. This will usually be the author or the publisher of the work. Resources for finding rights holders can be found below.
	2 - Request permission: Once you have found who holds the copyright, you will need to ask their permission either through written communication or the proposed request mechanism. Below you will find a template letter for writing a copyright permissions request, but essentially you should make it clear what you want to reuse, where will you be reusing it (i.e. an article, a thesis, etc), and how will it be reused (i.e. will that article/thesis be shared openly? will it have a creative commons licence applied?). If you want to reuse published material, the publisher may use a tool like The Copyright Clearance Center to handle queries. In these cases, you may be charged for reusing the material. If you are looking to reuse material for your thesis, typically there won't be a charge, but if there is, the university would not expect you to pay it - instead you would simply use the material which would then be redacted on the public version.
	3 - Allow time for a response: Permission requests often take time, so it is important that you allow time for the copyright holder to get back to you. You can always send a follow-up query, but you can not assume you have permission if you have not received a response.
	4 - Maintain records of the permission: Once you have received permission, it is important you keep evidence of it. This might be in the form of the email/letter confirming you can reuse it, or a confirmation receipt for a permissions tool. Keeping this record allows you to prove you can reuse the material, if it ever gets questioned. You should also indicate that you have been granted permission at the appropriate point with a statement like "Permission to reproduce [make reference to the exact material included] has been granted by [name of the rights holder]."

What if you don't get permission to reuse material

If your permissions request is denied or you simply don't hear back, then there are a few options that you can still take.

In some cases, you might be able to reuse materials but not in an open output - for instance you might use third-party material in your thesis but cannot reshare that material in your thesis openly, or you might be allowed to reuse material in a publication but not if a creative commons licence is applied to it. In these cases, the material can be redacted in the open version - i.e. they will be blocked from view, but maintained in a full restricted version. For theses, the ORSP will redact the material before uploading to Pure, in which case a full copy of your thesis will also be on the record but will only be accessible by repository staff.

If you cannot share the work in a redacted form, you may need to replace it with material that you can reuse. This is particularly the preferred option if the material you need to reuse is simply for a generic demonstration. Below are some resources to help find Open Access / Public Domain substitute material, but it is advised that you always reverse search these images to be careful of licence washing (i.e. where a copyright image is reposted elsewhere with an open licence without the creator's permission).

• Creative Commons Image search: https://search.creativecommons.org/ 

• Europeana: www.europeana.eu

• Flickr Commons: www.flickr.com/commons 

• Wellcome Images: http://wellcomeimages.org 

• Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page 

Further Resources and Support around Copyright

For copyright queries related to teaching materials, the relevant Academic Liaison Librarian for your department can provide advice.

For researchers looking to re-use copyrighted material in a publication, the Open Research & Scholarly Publications team can be contacted for guidance in the first instance.