Using third-party material in your journal article

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Permissions to use third-party material in your journal article

As a warranty in the Journal Author Publishing Agreement you make with us, you must get written permission to use third-party material in your article. The written permission must come from the person or organization that holds the copyright.

What is a third party? A person or a group of people, that are not a primary party involved in your journal article.

What is third-party material? 

Third-party materials are those materials which are owned and held in copyright by a third party. They include – but are not limited to – any proprietary text, illustration, table, or other material, including data, audio, video, film stills, screenshots, musical notation, and any other supplemental material.

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When do I need to gain permission?

In academic publishing, the reproduction of short extracts of text and some other types of material, may be permitted on a limited basis. For the purposes of criticism and review, they may be allowed without formal permission, on the basis that:

  • They are being used for the purpose of quotation, for objective use, or evidenced scholarly criticism or review (not just for illustration) 

  • The quotation is reproduced accurately, either within quotation marks or as displayed text

  • Full credit is given

Important: A quotation from a song lyric or a poem, whether used as an epigraph or within the text, will always require written permission from a copyright holder. You must get this written permission if you are to use such third-party materials in your journal article.

If you have a publishing agreement with us, you must gain written permission to reproduce any content owned and held in copyright by a third party, in your journal article.

You must also acknowledge and attribute the third party. And, if you are to use content that is not copyrighted and held in the public domain, you must properly credit this.

Please refer to the Publishers Association permission guidelines for further guidance. 

Taylor & Francis is a signatory to the International Association of Science, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) Permissions Agreement. This allows for reproduction of limited portions of text and illustrations at the individual article level, without securing formal permission by signatory participants. Please see permissions and guidelines from STM for more information.

Permission to publish checklist

When you are asking permission to reproduce any kind of third-party material from copyrights holders, please ask for the following:

  1. Non-exclusive rights to reproduce the item within your article in [Journal Name] targeted at a specialist academic readership with a defined circulation.

  2. Print and electronic rights for the full term of copyright and any extensions of copyright to facilitate reproduction of the material in the journal’s print and online editions. Please note: we cannot publish third-party material using a time-limited license.

  3. Worldwide English-language distribution rights.

  4. If it is an image, you will need 300 dpi minimum resolution. Please refer to specific instructions for authors for more details.

Still have questions?

If you are not sure if permission is needed for third-party materials you want to use in your article, please contact us and we can help you.

You will need to allow several weeks or even months for permission requests, so it is advisable to begin this process as early as possible. The images and figures section of the Taylor & Francis Editorial Policies includes guidance on getting consent from image subjects, along with specific considerations for the use of images in both arts, humanities, and social sciences research and science, technology, and medicine research. 

Frequently asked questions

We have gathered some FAQs about third-party material, please take a look through to find guidance on special cases.

It is the custom and practice in academic publishing that short extracts of text may be reproduced without formal permission, on the basis that:
– The purpose of quotation is objective and evidenced scholarly criticism
– The quotation is reproduced accurately, either within quotation (“ ”) marks or as displayed (indented) text
– Full attribution is given.

As an author, you are required to secure permission to reproduce any proprietary material, including text, where the above exceptions do not apply (e.g. for illustrative purposes, a poem or song in full). 

Redrawn versions of copyrighted illustrative material fall within the scope of “derivative copyright”. You should check who owns the copyright for the original figure, and request permission to reuse the material.

You may need to submit your own redrawn figure so that the rightsholder can confirm its accuracy. 

If you use a table that has been published in a previous work, or if you faithfully reproduce a section or piece of a table from a previous work, then you should check who owns the copyright for the original table and seek permission to reuse the data/material.

If you have taken some data or information from a table in an original work and then used that data in conjunction with your own in a new table (as opposed to using the original table itself), then you do not need to seek permission for the use of the original table. This is because it is not strictly derivative use, but you must add the citation reference to the caption for the new table, acknowledging that the table includes data and figures previously presented in [source] and provide the citation in the references.

Yes, you will need to find out the status of the image and find out who owns the copyright. This may be the photographer, artist, agency, museum, or library. You will then need to get permission from the copyright holder to reproduce the image in a journal article.

Taylor & Francis urge authors to exercise caution with any image downloaded from the internet, e.g. from Wikipedia, Google, or Facebook. This is because images are frequently posted without the knowledge or permission of the copyright holder, and are quickly removed if the copyright holder raises an objection.

Please be aware that on some occasions the book cover may have additional third-party rights attached, for images contained with it. So, the permissions for reuse may be restricted. In addition, we recommend that the image used is of a high quality/resolution and that this image be sought directly from the book publisher when seeking permission to use the cover image.

You will need to check who owns the copyright of the original work, and ask for permission to reuse the material. The original publisher will usually give you permission to reproduce your own work free of charge. If a license was agreed with the publisher in the first instance then permission will again be granted for free.

Yes, you will need to check who owns the copyright (this may be the publisher, author, institution, or organization), and ask for permission to reuse the material.

Yes, any person/s in your photographs will need to give written consent to the inclusion of the materials. You are required to provide this permission.

If you involved other people in your research or clinical experiment – for example, a patient, service user, or participant (or that person’s parent or legal guardian) – and you describe them in your article, you will need to provide written consent to the inclusion of the material, text, or image, pertaining to them. And also permissions that they acknowledge that they cannot be identified via the article, that you have anonymized them, and that you do not identify them in any way, unless with their permission.

Images of people taken at public events may not require formal permission, assuming photography was explicitly permitted. 

Yes, permission should always be obtained. Please be aware that some poets will not allow changes to the layout of the poem or allow you to use a small number of lines. Poem fees are normally charged per line.

With song lyrics you should be aware that even if you only use one line, you may be charged the same price as you would for the complete song. Rightsholders for song lyrics require people intending to reproduce lyrics to apply for permission for each reuse, and a fee may be charged. 

Film stills, film clips, and extracts of video should be used specifically within the context of the article for criticism or review. Each clip should be no longer than is necessary to illustrate the point made in the text. You should always provide full credits for the source of every image or clip.

We urge caution when sourcing images from the internet, as these may have been posted without the permission of the rightsholder. 

Yes. Although the artefact itself may be out-of-copyright, it is likely to be subject to restrictions on reproduction set by the artwork owner, often a public or private gallery, so permission is mandatory; visit the Design and Artists Copyright Society for further help. 

More FAQs on third-party material

The questions below relate to using third-party material that is from another owned platform.

Do I need permission to use:

  • An image from Google Earth?
    Please see Google’s Geo guidelines.

  • A Facebook screenshot?
    Facebook screenshots may be used according to their guidelines but you will need prior written permission from Facebook. 

  • A Twitter quote?
    Yes. The Twitter author must be contacted and their permission sought to reuse the material in the article. Please see Twitter’s terms & conditions. 

  • An image from Flickr?
    Yes. Flickr images may fall under a common usage license or may have all rights reserved. 

  • An image from Yahoo?
    If you are seeking permission to use any Yahoo! trademarks, logos, screen shots, copyrighted designs, or other brand features from the Yahoo! websites, please see the Yahoo policies.  

  • A crown copyright image?
    Please see National Archives copyright for further guidance. 

  • A Google N-Gram?
    No, but please make sure that you cite Jean-Baptiste Michel, Yuan Kui Shen, Aviva Presser Aiden, Adrian Veres, Matthew K. Gray, The Google Books Team, Joseph P. Pickett, Dale Hoiberg, Dan Clancy, Peter Norvig, Jon Orwant, Steven Pinker, Martin A. Nowak, and Erez Lieberman Aiden. (2010) Quantitative analysis of culture using millions of digitized books. Science. Published Online Ahead of Print: 12/16/2010 DOI: 10.1126/science.1199644  

  • A ClipArt?
    Yes. The use of all Microsoft copyrighted content is subject to permission being given by Microsoft – see Microsoft’s Use of Microsoft Copyrighted Content. Commercial reuse (for example, in an academic journal) may be prohibited. 

  • An image that will appear on a journal cover, even if I already have permission to use it in my article?
    Yes. Permission to use an image in your article does not necessarily extend to its use on the journal cover. Please make sure that you have specific permission to use an image on the cover, and let your production editor know of any attribution wording that is necessary.

  • An image of graffiti?
    Graffiti is copyrightable by a graffiti artist if the graffiti was made with the consent, either contemporaneously or retrospectively, of the owner of the structure (building, wall, etc.) on which the graffiti was made. The graffiti artist may then assert copyright in the original and in any images made of the original, again, contemporaneously or retrospectively, and may insist on third parties seeking reuse permission for such images. Using a pseudonym appears to be common, and does not render assertion of copyright ownership void. Graffiti is not copyrightable by a graffiti artist if the graffiti was made without the consent of the owner of the structure. It is then considered vandalism, and any images could be presented as reportage. We suggest you consult us in this instance. 

  • A survey questionnaire or psychometric scale?
    Yes, you should request formal written permission from the author/creator/designer, and/or the rightsholder – even where you are reproducing an extract. The rightsholder may apply a reproduction fee, and will certainly advise on the correct attribution statement and form of license.

May I describe and illustrate a patent in my article?

Guidance on describing and illustrating patents can be accessed at:

In all cases, it is essential proper acknowledgment and attribution is given to the patent owner. 

What is the STM Agreement and how does it affect me with regards to seeking permissions? 

Taylor & Francis is a member of the International Association of Scientific, Technical & Medical Publishers (STM), and since 1979, signatory to the STM Permission Guidelines on the free and reciprocal exchange of text, figures, and tables. 

The guidelines state that “requests for small portions of text and a limited number of illustrations should be granted on a gratis basis for signatory participants, and further describe a more automatic process which eliminates the need for requests to be transmitted (some signatories have chosen this route, others continue to request express permission requests). The guidelines apply to both book and journal content, and facilitate reproduction of further editions or in other media such as in online form”. 

Please see the guidelines and list of participating publishers. 

What if my article is to be published open access? 

Firstly, please note that much of the same information on permissions applies to both open access (OA) and subscription articles. Whether you are publishing your article on an open access basis or not, you will need to seek permission to reuse any content in which copyright is owned by a third party (the “rightsholder”) in your article. 

Authors of OA articles can choose to publish under a license with fewer restrictions on reuse, especially if the article is published under a Creative Commons license (please see copyright and licenses for further information). However, an author does not have the right to license the reuse of any third-party copyright material contained within an OA article, and so it is essential to obtain appropriate permission from the relevant rightsholder. 

When seeking permission to reproduce any kind of third-party material from rightsholders, please tell them the license you are likely to publish your work under, and the license conditions. For example: 

[license] the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), [terms] which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 

The third party can grant you permission either to include their material under the same terms as the license or to include their material with reuse not permitted. You will then need to ensure that captions for any third-party material reflect the conditions under which permission has been granted. Follow the relevant step below to do this: 

If you have permission to include the material under the same terms as the license you are signing, please ensure that your caption notes the copyright holder (e.g., © Joe Bloggs). 

If you have permission to include the material within the article only (not under the same license terms as your work) please ensure that your caption notes the copyright holder (e.g., © Joe Bloggs. Reuse not permitted). Please submit copies of all permissions documentation and approval from third parties with your article, to ensure rapid publication of your work. 

Further resources on using third-party material in your article 

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