Obtaining Permission to Reproduce Material

Forms

• Permissions Request Form–Specific Project Requests ↓
• Permissions Request Form–General Requests ↓
• Patient Consent Form ↓
• Patient Consent Chinese Translation US/UK legal clause deleted ↓
• Patient Consent Chinese Translation Full document ↓

 

Fair use or fair dealing (depending on the country whose laws apply) allows the use of a copyrighted work for criticism or review. This extends to quotations that form part of book reviews and other critical material. Permission to quote is not required in such instances, provided the extracts are not substantial and are genuinely required for review or criticism. For works of shorter length, such as songs, permission to reuse shorter extracts may be required. All sources must be credited – title and author at minimum – for fair dealing to apply.

Additional guidelines on permissions:

The author seeks permission to reproduce material which that author has previously published: The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce the material "in print and other media" from the publisher of the source, and for supplying ICRP with that permission. A RightsLink facility for requesting permission from ICRP journals is available on each journal's website. The corresponding author is also responsible for completing and returning to the editorial office or the publisher the journal-specific copyright transfer form, and any financial disclosure forms that might be required for a particular journal. These forms are usually found on each journal's website. Forms may also be available from the journal's editorial office.

Author retains copyright: If you, the author, have retained the copyright, it is still likely that the first journal will require an exclusive license to publish, which means that you are not in a position to authorize another journal to republish. As a general rule, it is essential to obtain written permission from the original publisher or society to reproduce the relevant material if this is not made clear in the Agreement or license you signed for that publisher or society. It will always be necessary to seek permission to re-publish unless the license you have signed is clearly for non-exclusive rights only.

Copyright rests with the original publisher: Where the previous publisher owns the copyright, the copyright line on the re-published contribution should refer to the previous publisher. In these cases, the copyright line that will appear on the published contribution will be e.g., © 2013 Oxford University Press.

Copyright is owned by a third party: If the content has been previously published, and a third party is the copyright holder or exclusive licensee of rights in that material, you must seek and obtain permission for re-use, and credit the material by the permission grant. This applies whether you have written the material yourself or whether it has been written by a third party. Permission is generally not required for brief and insubstantial extracts of text or references to other works, provided that these are properly attributed. In all cases, you should be aware that duplicate publication can constitute an infringement and/or an ethical violation if it is not made clear that the material has been published before.

Securing permission to reproduce figures/tables from an already published contribution: You must ensure that you have received permission from the copyright holder or exclusive licensee to reproduce in the contribution all material not owned by you and that you have provided full acknowledgement of the source. In most cases, the original publisher's Rights Department or the journal editorial office will advise you of the exact form of words required. This usually includes a full bibliographic reference to the original publication and an acknowledgement that the material is reproduced with permission from the rights owner. ICRP is a signatory to an agreement signed by the majority of scientific, technical and medical (STM) publishers whereby participating publishers do not make reciprocal charges for the reproduction of copyright material. These guidelines extend to the re-use of a small number of figures and tables from journal articles without seeking permission and several large STM publishers have signed up to this. For further information, please see the Permission Guidelines from the International Association of STM Publishers.

Permission to reproduce material from a website: To secure permission to use material from a website, we recommend seeking permission from the source. If the website does not provide a source and/or the source is unknown to you, then you should seek permission from the website staff to reuse the material. If the website has posted material without seeking permission from the copyright holder and/or the source is unknown, then you are taking a risk in including the material in your work. As a last resort, the Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) can be contacted to trace the copyright holder.

Securing copyright for interviews: If the record of an informal conversation you held with a particular interviewee appears in a contribution, there is no issue regarding copyright. However, copyright may rest with the interviewee in cases of formal interviews where you record the subject's conversation on a tape recorder or verbatim. It is therefore necessary for the interviewee to sign the Agreement. In some cases, copyright in interviews is shared jointly between the interviewer and interviewee where the conversation being recorded represents a mutual exchange between the two. In such cases, both parties should sign the Agreement.

Learn more about ICRP's policies on Handling Retractions and Expressions of Concern and Dual Publication, Plagiarism and Defamation.