Copyright:Official Documents/Theses and Dissertations/When to Seek Permission

When to Seek Permission

You should seek permission if your thesis contains any of the following:

• Images of any form that have been obtained from copyrighted sources. This includes any tables, figures, maps, graphs, photographs, screenshots, drawings, logos, video screen captures, etc. that have been obtained from websites, newspapers, journals, books, brochures, professors' lecture notes, etc.

• Since you will typically be using the whole of the copyrighted image (as opposed to a small portion of the image), you should be particularly careful to obtain permission before including it in your thesis.
• Altering an image does not remove the need to seek permission. Common alterations include cropping, re-sizing, modifying colours, and annotating with text, arrows, and other visual call-outs.
• Keep in mind that just because something is freely available on the web does not necessarily mean that you have permission to reproduce it. Always check the Terms of Use or copyright licence information on the website.

• Long quotations or excerpts from any one source. Common sources of quotations include books, academic journals, newspapers, magazines, short stories, plays, and poems.

• Articles or parts of articles that you wrote and previously published in a journal to which you assigned copyright. Academic publishing agreements commonly require authors to assign their copyright to the publisher. Refer to Including Published Material in a Thesis or Dissertation for additional requirements from Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.

• Material co-authored with others. Each co-author shares copyright and must consent to your use of the work.

• Scripts and recordings of any performance.

• Translations of copyrighted work.

• Testing instruments such as standardized tests, questionnaires, forms, and surveys.

Important: The list above is not exhaustive. If your use of copyrighted material is not described above, that does not necessarily mean that you do not need to seek permission.