Copyright refers to the entity that holds the rights to the published work – it is the copyright holder (e.g., publisher, author) that you will have to contact in order to gain permission to share, reproduce, or use the published work.
It is important that you identify whether permission is needed for any published material that you wish to reproduce in your own work. This includes permission to reuse images. Please note that if you would like to create a new and original figure from data used in a previously published manuscript, you would typically just acknowledge the author(s) and permission may not be required.
Permission may even be required when a researcher wants to re-publish or re-use their own published work, as it may be that the researcher has signed over their copyright privileges at the time of publication.
Most mainstream publishers have a ‘permissions’ section (see for example, Elsevier, Springer, Wiley) on their website which explains their specific rules and how you can go about requesting use of their various published materials.
When work is published in an open access format, it is more likely that the author retains the copyright, but this does vary. If you would like to re-use something that is published open access, please refer to the PLOS ‘How open is it’ open access spectrum to determine whether you should be contacting the author or the publisher.
Steps to obtaining re-use permission
3. Request permission for re-use. Include specifics on what you want to reuse, and how you will use it, in your request.
4. Ensure proper citation of the work when using it
Creative Commons licences are an easy way to make work freely available to be shared, used, and re-mixed. Learn more by watching the video above.
You can use Creative Commons licences to control who can share your work, how your work can be shared, and to obtain attribution by others. The resources below will help you select the appropriate licence for your work.
