When your thesis or research publication contains third-party copyright material, you need to seek permission (usually from the publisher) to reproduce this material when publishing or depositing it in a repository. If you are planning to incorporate your own previously published work in your thesis, you also need to seek permission.
The permission to reproduce your own publication should be negotiated at the time of signing the author or publishing agreements, but you can also obtain retrospective written permission. You can take advantage of the free open access publishing agreements that CDU has under the CAUL Read and Publish deal.
Using Third-Party Copyright Material
If you are using other people’s copyright material in your research, you must ensure that you comply with copyright law. Before submitting your thesis to Charles Darwin University (CDU) online repository, you will be required to declare that you have not infringed the copyright.
- Start the process early, as obtaining permission can be time-consuming.
- All permission requests must be in writing, and records should be kept for the duration of the thesis' availability.
Template for listing third-party copyright material in a thesis.
Fair dealing provisions for research and study
This provision only applies to material being copied for personal research and study. It does not apply to the use of third-party materials in your thesis or research papers. You cannot rely on this provision if you subsequently publish all or part of your work in either print or electronic form.
In certain circumstances, the Copyright Act allows you to exercise the rights of the copyright owner without permission and without payment. Under the ‘fair dealing’ provision, it is not a copyright infringement to use a reasonable portion of a work for the purpose of ‘research or study’ or ‘criticism or review’. If you as a student/researcher reproduced reasonable portions of copyright material in your thesis submitted for examination, you are operating under the exemption of fair dealing for research or study. For research or study, the Act defines a reasonable portion to be, in broad terms, 10% or one chapter of a book, or one article from a periodical.
However, once you deposit your thesis in the CDU repository and make it publicly accessible under the CDU Open Access policy, the reproduction and communication of copyrighted materials are no longer solely for research or study. Therefore, you cannot claim the defense of fair dealing on that ground (Fitzgerald et al., 2006).
Using material created by others
If in your thesis or a research paper intended for publication, you are using parts of other people’s work, you need to obtain permission to include it. Examples are:
- large chunks of third-party text or substantial quotes
- Images, graphs, diagrams, maps, tables and charts
- Survey templates
Gaining permission
| Website | Content belongs to the website owner. Before copying images or diagrams from a website, check the Terms of Use, usually found in the website footer. Ask for permission by sending a request via the website contact page. |
| Journal Articles/Publishers | Many publishers use an automated permission-granting service called “RightsLink”. It could be labelled in many different ways, for example, as ‘Request Permission’, ‘Get rights and content’, ‘Reprints and permissions’ or ‘information, rights and permissions’. If a publisher does not have an automated permission-granting service, you will need to request the permission in writing. |
Open Access publications
Open Access (OA) publications and copyright are interconnected but not identical. Open Access refers to free and immediate online access to publications, however, copyrights still apply.
Open Access articles are usually made available under a Creative Commons (CC) licence. CC licences define the rights of both the author and user when accessing and using the material. Familiarise yourself with the terms of the CC licence of the material before you use it in your thesis.
Even though a material is freely available, it does not automatically mean it is OA. Always check the copyright, licence and terms and conditions of reuse.
Reproducing your own published articles in your thesis
Articles published in a closed or subscription-based journal
When publishing in a closed or subscription-based journal, you will be asked to sign a publisher’s Copyright Transfer Agreement or Author’s Agreement. Read it carefully before signing and publishing your article, to clearly understand your rights as an author. The agreement will outline and determine what you (as the author) are allowed to do with your article after publication and what your rights are in relation to reusing and sharing your work.
Before/at the time of publication
The Agreement may contain a clause granting you, as the primary author, the right to reproduce the Accepted version in your thesis. You can ask for a similar clause to be included in your publishing Agreement. Without this clause, you will need to gain a licence via the RightsLink service.
After the publication
If you have not negotiated with the publisher the conditions of reusing your own work, you will need to gain a licence via the RightsLink service. Check the publisher’s policy of reuse – can usually be found on the “Author’s information” page in the journal. Most publishers will have an access and reuse policy.
Publishers have different policies on the versions of papers they will allow you to reproduce and make openly accessible. It is important to understand these terms as they often define the rights/permissions you have as an author.
| Submitted version (Preprint) | The manuscript before peer review. This is the author/s' original version of the article that was sent to a journal for consideration. The author/s hold the copyright of this version. |
| Accepted version/ Accepted manuscript (Postprint) | Manuscript after peer review. This is the version of an article that has been amended in order to reflect any peer review revisions in the publication process. The publisher holds the copyright over this version, but this version falls under the Green Open Access Policy of the journal and can often be reused in your thesis under certain conditions e.g. restrictive embargo periods, generally ranging from 12 to 24 months. Note: Not every publisher has a Green Open Access policy. A publisher’s licence is required to reproduce the accepted version (full or partial) without seeking explicit permission. If the accepted version of an article is to be reproduced in a thesis the full citation including the publisher's permission, should be listed on the Copyright Declaration page and prefaced in the relevant chapter. |
| Published version (Version of record) | The final version as it appears in the publication. The publisher holds copyright over this version. You need to have an explicit and written permission form the publisher to reuse this version in your thesis. This version can only be included if it is an open access article and carries a Creative Commons licence. Note: Only because an article is freely accessible and available online, it does not mean it is published OA. It has to carry an explicit CC licence with the terms and conditions of reuse. |
Open Access article with a Creative Commons (CC) Licence
If you have published an article with a CC licence, you may reproduce it in full in your thesis in the format in which it was published, or you may change the format to match your thesis.
A CC Licence does not mean that you retain the copyright as an author, it only outlines the terms and conditions of use and makes the work free for the reader to download and use according to the terms of the licence.
Even if published in Open Access under CC Licence, if you are not the copyright owner, the full citation of the published article should appear on the Copyright Declaration page and in the chapter where it is reproduced. The CC licence should be stated with a hyperlink to the licence at the end of the citation. You may change and adapt the used article published under the CC License, unless it carries the Non Derivative (ND) clause.
You can take advantage of the free open access publishing agreements that CDU has under the CAUL Read and Publish deal.
Non-traditional thesis (by prior publication)
If your thesis incorporates articles you have written or co-written previously, seek written permission from the relevant publishers before:
- your thesis is published in any way or made available online
- republishing portions of previously published works (in their original form or a substantially similar form).
Keep a record of all copyright material included in your research in the listing of third-party copyright material document, together with all the granted permissions.
Copyright permission licences received from publishers should not be reproduced in the thesis itself.
Compile all permissions into one Copyright Permissions PDF file to accompany your thesis submission.
The complete citation of the published article should be included on the Copyright Declaration page and in the chapter where it is reproduced.
Example:
Author, Title, Journal Title, Volume/Issue, DOI, Copyright ©, [year], Link to the published article on the publisher's website. Reproduced with permission from [Publisher].
OR
Author, Title, Journal Title, Volume/Issue, DOI. Made available under a CC BY 4.0 licence
Articles published in a closed or subscription-based journal
When publishing in a closed or subscription-based journal, you will be asked to sign a publisher’s Copyright Transfer Agreement or Author’s Agreement. Read it carefully before signing and publishing your article, to clearly understand your rights as an author. The agreement will outline and determine what you (as the author) are allowed to do with your article after publication and what your rights are in relation to reusing and sharing your work.
Before/at the time of publication
The Agreement may contain a clause granting you, as the primary author, the right to reproduce the Accepted version in your thesis. You can ask for a similar clause to be included in your publishing Agreement. Without this clause, you will need to gain a licence via the RightsLink service.
After the publication
If you have not negotiated with the publisher the conditions of reusing your own work, you will need to gain a licence via the RightsLink service. Check the publisher’s policy of reuse – can usually be found on the “Author’s information” page in the journal. Most publishers will have an access and reuse policy.
Publishers have different policies on the versions of papers they will allow you to reproduce and make openly accessible. It is important to understand these terms as they often define the rights/permissions you have as an author.
| Submitted version (Preprint) | The manuscript before peer review. This is the author/s' original version of the article that was sent to a journal for consideration. The author/s hold the copyright of this version. |
| Accepted version/ Accepted manuscript (Postprint) | Manuscript after peer review. This is the version of an article that has been amended in order to reflect any peer review revisions in the publication process. The publisher holds the copyright over this version, but this version falls under the Green Open Access Policy of the journal and can often be reused in your thesis under certain conditions e.g. restrictive embargo periods, generally ranging from 12 to 24 months. Note: Not every publisher has a Green Open Access policy. A publisher’s licence is required to reproduce the accepted version (full or partial) without seeking explicit permission. If the accepted version of an article is to be reproduced in a thesis the full citation including the publisher's permission, should be listed on the Copyright Declaration page and prefaced in the relevant chapter. |
| Published version (Version of record) | The final version as it appears in the publication. The publisher holds copyright over this version. You need to have an explicit and written permission form the publisher to reuse this version in your thesis. This version can only be included if it is an open access article and carries a Creative Commons licence. Note: Only because an article is freely accessible and available online, it does not mean it is published OA. It has to carry an explicit CC licence with the terms and conditions of reuse. |
Open Access article with a Creative Commons (CC) Licence
If you have published an article with a CC licence, you may reproduce it in full in your thesis in the format in which it was published, or you may change the format to match your thesis.
A CC Licence does not mean that you retain the copyright as an author, it only outlines the terms and conditions of use and makes the work free for the reader to download and use according to the terms of the licence.
Even if published in Open Access under CC Licence, if you are not the copyright owner, the full citation of the published article should appear on the Copyright Declaration page and in the chapter where it is reproduced. The CC licence should be stated with a hyperlink to the licence at the end of the citation. You may change and adapt the used article published under the CC License, unless it carries the Non Derivative (ND) clause.