Permissions
& referencing

Clearing permission is a legal requirement. If you are republishing material within your work that you or your co-authors have not created (or has been published previously), you will need to clear permission to reuse this content from the copyright holder. We ask that this process is completed prior to the submission of your work. Permissions clearance can take months, so the earlier you start, the better. Full referencing of material is expected as per academic standards. If permission is not cleared, Emerald will be unable to publish that particular material. If you need any help or advice on how to clear permission/if something needs permissions clearance, please contact your Content Development Editor.

Authors are responsible for clearing permissions and for any costs incurred.

As a rule, you will need to clear permissions to reproduce any material you have not created yourself (or that has been published previously).

This can be in the form of:

Figures/tables/illustrations

If you are republishing a table, figure or illustration verbatim, with no adaptations, you must clear permission via the copyright holder.

Photos

For photos, you must clear permission from:

• The photographer
• The subject of the photo;
• Note: Be especially careful if the photo includes a child; you will need to get their legal guardian’s signature.
• If the image is taken from an image bank, such as Getty, you will need to obtain a license through the image bank for commercial distribution. If this or a similar term is not stated on the license, Emerald will be unable to include it in the publication.

Quotations (over 250 words)

• You are required to clear permission for extracts from academic books, textbooks and/or websites if the extract is more than 250 words;
• If the extract is from a song or poem and is copyrighted, you must always clear permission regardless of word count. Please see song lyrics & poetry below.
• If you are reproducing an extract from a novel, you will need permission if the material is the ‘essence’ of the work, or involves the first and/or end lines of the book.
• Works are only in the public domain if = the year of author’s death + 70 years, i.e. Rudyard Kipling died in 1936, and his works came into the public domain in 2006.
• If you wrote the original quote, but it has been previously published, you will need to check your author agreement with your previous publisher.

Epigraphs (eg quotations used at the start of a chapter or manuscript that are not discussed within the body of the text)

• Unless in the public domain, permission must be sought for the reuse of content in an epigraph. Epigraphs can be problematic from a permissions point of view because they stand alone from the text and are not subject to critique, often capturing the ‘essence’ of the work. Therefore, we generally advise against incorporating these.

Song lyrics & poetry

• Any poetry or song lyrics that are not in the public domain must have permission cleared; even if you have only taken one line from the poem.
• This is because this may contain the ‘essence’ of the work and therefore may ‘damage’ the market value of the original work.
• Record labels are especially protective of lyrics and will generally charge for permissions.
• Some publishers currently charge upwards of £60 GBP per line to reproduce a poem, therefore you must decide whether it brings any value to your manuscript.

Screenshots

• Despite the content being freely available, content within websites is copyrighted. Therefore, you may need to clear permissions (if for example, you wish to reproduce a featured figure, or an extract longer than 250 words). The license terms on websites will dictate whether you will need to clear permissions or not. For example, ‘© JoeBloggsWorld 2012. All Rights Reserved’ - as all rights have been reserved, you will need to contact JoeBloggsWorld to clear permission.
• If the website says ‘Unless stated otherwise, the information posted on this web site is in the public domain and may be used or reproduced without specific permission.’, you do not need to clear permission for this content. However, be careful and verify that the website is the copyright holder; if they are not, you will need to clear permissions the usual way.
• If the website and its content is published under a Creative Commons License, this will be a different matter. For further information, please consult the open access content/creative Commons section.

Software screenshots

• When you install a programme on your computer or use a web-based service, you will agree to terms & conditions. These terms & conditions will usually determine whether or not you can reuse that content. This will not usually include commercial distribution; as Emerald is a commercial publisher, you will be unable to use any screenshots or surrounds of programmes without clearing permissions first.

Social media

• If you wish to reproduce a tweet or Facebook post (or any other kind of social media post), we draw a distinction between and private individuals and public figures. For private individuals, we would consider their posts copyrighted materials and permission must be sought from the user who has created the post. If you cannot clear permission from the individual user, you may include the material, but must ensure that their profile picture/username are not visible (they can be pixelated) and their post is not easily identified (via a Search engine, etc.).
• For public figures (for instance, accounts with the blue verified badge on Twitter - the blue tick) their username does not need to be blurred out and you do not need permission, providing that the material is not being used in a subjective way or the account is not being misrepresented.

Logos/trademarks

• Permission must always be cleared to reuse a logo in an article. This is because companies are often very protective of their brand and fear negative associations.
• Logos are often added to a work to ‘spice it up’ and attract interest; however, they rarely add any value. If you have included any logos or trademarks within your work and consider them a ‘must have’, make sure you allow a long waiting period to clear permissions.
• Many companies do not necessarily have a specific department to deal with permissions requests such as these, and this could lead to a long delay in receiving a reply.

Case studies/named organisations (if not based on publicly available and referenced information)

• If you have written about a company in great detail and have spent time within that organisation, or named/interviewed employees, you will need to clear permission from that organisation using the case study consent form;
• It is only acceptable to anonymise the company/employee names provided that they cannot be easily identified from the rest of the article;
• If you have compiled your case study from publicly accessible documents such as newspaper or journal articles, you do not need to clear permission.
• If you have to clear permission with the organisation, consent must be given either by a board member or a member of the company’s HR department.

Interviews (where the interviewee is identifiable)

• If you’re attributing a quote to a named person which has not been published previously, you will need to get written permission from the interviewee. Please ask the Book Project Editor for our interview release form.

Maps

• If the copyright has not expired, permission must always be cleared before republication- there can be no exceptions. Please note that Ordnance Survey maps are prepared by a third party company and require permission.
• Google maps do not require permission (providing that copyright statements are displayed), however, GoogleEarth and GoogleStreetView require permission as they are prepared by third parties and are subject to privacy laws.

Artwork

• Permission must be sought for any kind of artwork that you have not created yourself.
• If using artwork from a gallery, you will need to clear permission from the artist (who may or may not be the copyright owner), the gallery that the painting is held by, and the photographer of the image (if you have not taken it yourself) or the gallery doesn’t hold the photographic rights.

Your own previously published works where you do not hold copyright (eg in a previously published journal article)

• You may need to clear permission to use or adapt any part of your own previous work published by other publishers. To do this, you will need to consult the licence you signed with that publisher; this will dictate whether or not you may use the material without clearing permission.
• Please ensure that any material previously published is properly referenced and gives attribution to where the material first appeared. To not do so, may run the risk of self-plagiarism.

Once you have signed a contract with Emerald, you will be provided with a Permissions Tracker and a permissions request form by your Book Project Editor. The Permissions Tracker is for you to record all of your items requiring permissions clearance, your attempts to clear permission and any permissions granted. In addition to using the Permissions Tracker, please keep a record of all correspondence and permissions granted. If you can’t find the copyright holder, please keep a record of all attempts you have made at finding out who it is/contacting them.

Please keep this document up to date as it will ensure there are no delays once the work is submitted to Emerald.

To clear permission, you will need to first identify the copyright holder of the material you wish to reuse. Most publishers use a permissions clearance platform such as Copyright Clearance Center or  PLS to handle permissions requests for their content. Search for the material directly on the Copyright Clearance Center/Rightslink or PLS sites, or click on the ‘Reprints and Permissions’ button next to the work you want to reuse on the publisher’s website:

Or if the rightsholder is a company or an individual, you will need to send an email to the appropriate address (these details can usually be found under the ‘Contact us’ or ‘Legal’ sections on a company website).

What rights should you request?

In order to include the third-party material in your work, you must clear the following rights from the copyright owner:

• Non-exclusive rights to reproduce the material
• Print and electronic rights
• Worldwide English language rights
• To use the material for the life of the work. This means there should be no time restrictions on the reuse, for example a one-year licence.

Permission granted should be either:

• A licence provided through a permission clearance organisation such as Copyright Clearance Center or PLS
• A signed permission request form (where there is a copyright holder)
• A signed case study consent form (where a specific company or institution is discussed in great detail, and information not available in the public domain is included in the work)
• A signed interview release form (where an interviewee is identifiable)
• An email from the copyright holder/interviewee/organisation confirming permission is granted

You should forward this correspondence or documentation to your Content Development Editor and Book Project Editor when submitting your work. If you are unsure that the rights you have been granted will be sufficient, please contact your Content Development Editor, or alternatively [email protected].

PLEASE NOTE: If you would like to clear permission through sites such as Getty or Shutterstock, please inform your Content Development Editor contact before clearing permission so we can advise.

Adaptations fall under ‘derivative’ works in the UK copyright law and so are subject to copyright rules. There are no stated rules for what level of original thought and effort would result in an item being considered new.

• If the item has been significantly adapted, then you will only need to inform the original author/ creator (not to clear permission, but as an academic courtesy).
• If the item has not been significantly adapted, you will need to clear permission with the original copyright holder.

An example of what we consider an adaptation:

Figure 1. Original work
If the above were to be republished verbatim, then permission would be needed.

 

Figure 2. Adaptation
Because the above adaptation demonstrates sufficient labour, skill or judgement and is presented differently, permission does not need to be cleared via the copyright holder.

Yes. Emerald is a signatory of the STM Permissions Guidelines and there is a reciprocal agreement whereby certain amounts of content published by other STM signatories can be republished free of charge. Many publishers are signatories and you can find the full list of signatories here. These allowances include:

Use of up to 3 figures/tables/ images from an individual journal article or book chapter, subject to the following limits:

• not more than 5 figures/tables/images from a single book or journal issue/edition
• not more than 6 figures/tables/images from an annual journal volume
• not more than 3 figures/tables/images from works published by a single publisher for use in any given journal article or book chapter.
• not more than 30 figures/tables/images from a single publisher for use in any given book, no matter how many authors, chapters contributors or volumes it has.
• Use of a maximum of 400 (four hundred) words from an individual journal article or book chapter, but: not more than a total of 800 words from a single book or journal issue/edition

The full list of participating publishers and the full details of this agreement.

Note: If, according to the guidelines, “notification is not required”, you don’t need to clear permission at all, subject to full referencing.

If notification is required, you will need to contact the publisher, either via Rightslink or email, but you can still submit your work to Emerald, as permission will be granted.

You also do not have to clear permission for:

• Content in the public domain [see below]
• Creative Commons/Open Access content [see below]
• Other Emerald content. Providing that Emerald is the copyright holder in the work and there is nothing by the figure or content that attributes copyright to anyone else, then you may reuse an extract or a maximum of 3 figures from another Emerald publication free of charge (subject to full referencing and attribution).

• There are various types of Open Access/Creative Commons licences - some you will need to clear permissions for; please note that we cannot use any content published under a non-commercial licence, as Emerald is a commercial organisation. However, if you contact the copyright holder, you may be able to negotiate new terms for a one-off reuse.
• Inclusion of any Creative Commons content should be highlighted upon submission and clearly labelled within your manuscript.
• A summary of open access permission requirements can be found below:

Emerald can accept (without permissions clearance)	Emerald can’t accept (unless permission has been cleared with the copyright holder)
Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY)	Non-Commercial
Licence (CC BY-NC)	Creative Commons Attribution Sharealike
Licence (CC BY-SA)	Creative Commons Attribution Non-
Commercial-Sharealike (CC BY-NC-SA)	Creative Commons Attribution- No Derivatives
(CC BY-ND); please note that we will be unable to publish any adaptations of this material without permission from the copyright holder.	Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Non-Derivative (CC BY-NC-ND)

It is possible to include third-party images in your open access (OA) work.

Whilst we encourage authors to submit original content or to reuse material licensed under the same terms as your OA work, we recognise that not all content can be published under the terms of a CC BY license.

When requesting permission to reuse third-party content in your open access book, it is important to be explicit that the forthcoming work will be available under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY).

If the copyright holder of the content will not provide permission for it to be licensed open access but will allow it to feature on a non-exclusive basis, you may include the content subject to full attribution and with a statement clearly detailing that this content is not open access and has a different licence type.  If content is published under a separate license, this will be indicated on the copyright page of the work and where the content is used within the work

Under UK Copyright Law (The UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988), copyright exists for the life of the author + 70 years. After that date it enters the public domain and can be used without needing to clear permission.

For example, if you wished to use an excerpt from Bleak House by Charles Dickens: Charles Dickens died on 9th June 1870. 1870 +70 years = his work entered the public domain on the 1st January 1940; therefore permissions clearance isn’t required, subject to full referencing.