Can I use images from my published papers in my thesis without copyright infringment?divt‐ebrifon3)l Paas 1 i l 2 ul
I have to fill in copyright form for my PHD thesis submission. I have used some of the images already published in my IEEE/IET journal and conference papers. I signed copyright forms during the publication process of those papers.
Do these figures fall under the copyright act?
Can I confidently say that
My thesis does not contain ANY material of which Copyright belongs to third parties.
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For the case of IEEE publications, you may find this information from their Author Center helpful: Avoid Infringement upon IEEE Copyright – steeldriver 14 hours ago
2 Answers
You will have to read the copyright transfer form that YOU have signed. Sometimes, there are several options on whether you keep the right to reuse your work. In my personal experience, you often have some limitations on how you can reuse your material. Sometimes, you will have to place a reference on where this paper has been published first.
However, this entirely depends on what you have signed.
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3Good answer. As an additional point, note that if there is a copyright transfer form with a provision for reuse, then OP can reuse the images, but the statement in the question "my thesis does not contain ANY material of which Copyright belongs to third parties" is still false. – Federico Poloni 17 hours ago
For my thesis (7 years ago), I used many of my own figures from various journals. For each journal, I had to go to their website and fill in a web form (and/or send them an e-mail), asking for permission to use each specific figure. On the web form, there were various options regarding what you wanted to re-use the figure for, one of them was usually thesis/dissertation. The journal reviewed each request. All of mine were approved. They sent me a letter giving me permission to used that specific image in my thesis. I was required to add a note to the bottom of the caption saying something like "Reprinted with permission from [FULL CITATION]. Copyright [PUBLICATION YEAR], [JOURNAL]". This may be similar or completely different depending on where you've published. Check with your journals.
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3Indeed. One variation is that certain publishers don't even require permission. E.g. APS have the policy that "the author has the right to use the article or a portion of the article in a thesis or dissertation without requesting permission from APS, provided the bibliographic citation and the APS copyright credit line are given on the appropriate pages.". – Anyon yesterday