Hey postgrad-forum lovers,

I was wondering if anyone could help me or point in the right direction as to how to go about getting the authors permission to use one / several of their figures in my science-based PhD thesis? I was not funded by industry and had no competing financial interests to declare.

Having passed my viva one of my examiners said that I must get permission from the authors to use their figures (they were all cited of course). But some of the figures are from papers dating back to 1959!! Therefore would it be best to contact the publishers (i.e. the journal) to seek permission?

If there is anyone else who has had to this I would really appreciate hearing from you as I am a bit stuck with it at the moment.

Many Thanks!!

Hey,

I've often read in books a warning that reads something like, "Every effort has been made to contact the relevant copyright holders."

I just Googled that phrase and found what Blackwell put at the beginning of their books. I guess you could just alter the following in some way:

The author/editor and publisher gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to
reproduce the copyright material in this book:

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in
future reprints or editions of this book.

The examiner might need to check copyright law. I believe you're allowed to quote up to a certain 'reasonable' number of words (odd phrase here and there) and use the odd figure as long as you cite the original author. I'm surprised for a PhD thesis / dissertation this issue has been raised. You're lucky if more than a few people (though electronic databases may change this) even look at your thesis and no-one seems to give a sh*t about copyright for something that will normally have very little circulation.

I used a very small number of figures from other sources ensuring all were cited. If it had been an issue, then my external examiner would have made issue as I'd used a diagrammatic description of a model from one of her main works with suggested modifications. We discussed my modifications briefly and moved on without copyright being raised.

If you look at (clearer description - assuming you are UK - US law is looser):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_the_United_Kingdom

...there are a couple of clauses covering "fair dealing":

i.e.

s29.—(1) Fair dealing with a literary, dramatic, musical, etc, work, for the purpose of research for a non-commercial purpose, does not infringe any copyright in the work, provided it is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement of the source.

s30.—(1) Fair dealing with a work for the purpose of criticism or review, of that or another work, or of a performance of a work, does not infringe copyright in the work, provided it is accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement, and provided the work has actually been made available to the public.

It's only if large passages of work are repeated that permission needs to be sought I believe.

(If someone is quoting large amounts of work, then - unless there are special circumstances - I'd be concerned about the originality of the thesis and therefore the award of a PhD based on that thesis and be looking at the issue very closely.)

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

Thanks for these comments guys I appreciate it (yes I am from the UK, Mackem_Beefy/ Ian). I was also surprised that these issues were raised. It was only figures I had used which were modified and edited to suit the context.

Using your advice however I think I have a stronger basis to tackle these issues now.

Thanks!
Matt.

I would check with your graduate school/university library to clarify this. When I had to submit my final copy of my thesis I was given an extensive booklet regarding all of these issues.

There are different rules that apply to hard copies of a thesis, compared to an online version deposited in your university's library system which will most probably be free access.

If there a few figures you need to get permission for, it is worth seeking permission, but then you can either put the statement above saying all efforts have been taken to contact the author etc. ... Or (safer) you can remove the figure from the online version (and keep in your hard copy) with a statement that explains the omission. I removed items from my appendices of my online Ph.D thesis as there was no way I would get permission to reproduce the items - they were items from a test battery. Ultimately you are responsible for this, so check what your university grad school/library advise and then go with that. It is worth doing it right.

If you thesis is free access, then theoretically anyone could view your thesis - including the authors who's work you have quoted so it's working looking into a little.

ps. I have just googled my name and my thesis title and the free access pdf came up in the first few items found!

If you have adapted the figures so that they are slightly different, then that is usually sufficient to circumvent the copyright laws (and reference them as something like 'Adapted from Smoobles et al 2013'). I write manuscripts for a living, and we often do this.
For example, if you are reproducing a barchart, if you flip it (i.e. make vertical bars horizontal or vice versa) and change the colours of the bars, then that is enough for you to no longer need to obtain permission to reproduce the figure. Or reproducing a section of a chart but not the entire thing.
If you want to reproduce the figure/diagram in the exact same format, then changing fonts, colours, labels, axes etc. is usually enough to get away with it. I reproduced a couple of figures in my own thesis in this way, be redrawing them myself in Excel/Powerpoint and just altering them a bit so they didn't look like an identical copy, and no one even mentioned them (obviously they were fully referenced too).

Hi Matt123

What does you university regulation say about copyright as it is prudent to follow it. If the regulation is silent then may be you can resort to comparable universities in the UK to see what their regulations are with regard to copyrights and adopt it.

Hi Matt,

In answer to your question, yes approach the publishers of the journals in question - the copyright will probably rest with them. It''s 70 years in the European Economic Area so unfortunately your 1959 piece is still covered. It is the online version of the thesis that's the issue, not the print version. http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ora/oxford_etheses/copyright_and_other_legal_issues/copyright_held_by_third_parties__and__other_rights - some good advice on the specifics for theses and links from Oxford on this link.

Wow, thanks everyone this is massively helpful I appreciate all the comments, there is some really good advice here.

Loving the postgrad forum!
Thanks!!

PART 1:

From the Copyright Licensing Agency:

PART 2:

PART 3: I'll add that later I co-authored a book chapter with my former PhD supervisor. The book chapter was part of a commercial publication that did pull heavily on my work and that of my two predecessors, plus work done for another University.

For this book chapter, the publisher asked for authorisations from me, my two predecessors and from this other University. These were duly signed and returned.

However, once again material from other work only had odd sentences and say one diagram per previous publication taken for review and criticism, and these were cited and accredited in the Bibliography / References. When the article was proofread and refereed, the publishers did not raise any issues over these.

(I'll add once the chapter was published, we did not receive any royalties. However, that was an issue my former supervisor didn't sort out properly prior to writing the book chapter when I wasn't involved. Oh dear!!! :-) )

So once again, the term 'fair dealing' comes into play and as long as you do no more than quote the odd sentence or use the odd diagram for discussion, review and criticism, then you should be okay. Additionally, the thesis / dissertation is normally non-commercial and there will be no financial gain from it on your part, so once again unless you're taking large amounts of material and you are citing the original author then I would tend not to worry.

As you've gathered, I've become curious about this. Hope this all helps!!!

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

Thanks Ian (and others) that's great,

Just came to browse the forum and saw even more helpful stuff here, thanks. I will browse through this again tonight but thanks in advance for all your help with this!

Cheers :-)
Matt.