Copyright and open licenses
There are different rules surrounding copyright law for texts and images. You can find information about how to handle copyright both for your own material and if you want to use copyright protected material.
Copyright
Copyright means that the person who owns or publishes material and holds copyright protection also has the right to determine how it should be used. For example, you can transfer rights to a publisher or choose a license for your publication.
Material covered by copyright is protected during the author's lifetime and for 70 years after the author's death. If you want to use copyrighted material, you must always formally ask the owner for permission to use the material. You may need to pay a fee for reuse.
Using others' material
In scientific contexts, it is acceptable to reuse material from other publications in your article or book as long as you include a clear reference to the original and, where relevant, request permission to publish, for example, an image or a table made by another researcher.
It is important to request permission in advance and provide sufficient information about your publication to the copyright holder. To include all relevant aspects when requesting permission, you can use the template below. You can customize the text in the template letter according to your needs, and it is usually also acceptable to include the text in a regular email message.
Permission Letter to Republish Material
Word, 261.1 kB.
Images and Copyright
Artistic works, images, illustrations, and diagrams are protected by copyright, which means they may not be used by anyone else without the creator's permission. This protection is regulated in the Law on Copyright to Literary and Artistic Works (SFS 1960:729).
The organization Bildupphovsrätt represents thousands of Swedish and international artists. If you want to use an image from any of these, you can contact Bildupphovsrätt. In other cases, you can contact the creator, publisher, or issuer. Always specify the context in which you want to use the work and where it will be published.
Scientists sometimes need to use images in their research to illustrate their reasoning. Swedish copyright law provides special permission in these cases, making it possible to publish images without asking the copyright owner's permission, and without risk for liability.
If you do not receive permission to use an image in an electronic edition, you can replace the image with an explanatory text: "For copyright reasons, the image is missing in the electronic edition."
Bilder och forskning (in Swedish)
Pdf, 256.2 kB.
License Your Material
If you have created material that you want to share with others, there are different ways to license the material. In this way, you inform the reader or user how they can reuse the material.
You can license everything from articles, book chapters, entire books, other publications (e.g., blog posts), and teaching materials. The license should always be clearly marked in the material, e.g., on the title page or first page.
What are Open Licenses?
When you publish with open access, you retain your copyright but add an open license that informs the reader or downloader how the material can be used.
Creative Commons licenses are commonly used open licenses. They are administered by an independent and co-funded organization and are internationally valid.
All licenses require that the user of your work must attribute that you created it but not in a way that implies endorsement of their work. However, the copyright holder must always be named, and there must be a link to the original.
- BY – or “attribution” means that anyone who would like to use your work would have to give you attribution for it. Others can copy, distribute, display, perform and modify your work with this license.
- SA – means “share alike”, and adds a requirement to the above, which is that the work has to be shared with the same terms as the original license.
- NC – means “non-commercial” and means that the work cannot be distributed for commercial purposes.
- ND – means “no derivatives” and can be added to the CC-BY license to ensure that the work has to be shared in its original form, without changes.
These four licenses can be combined. The most common is CC-BY, which is the license most of the open access publishers use.
Using open licenses enables other researchers to reuse material for further research by, for example, opening up information to be read by machines (also known as "text and data mining"). The licenses can also be applied to the publication of research data.
The image below shows a spectrum of open licenses from so-called "public domain" (CC 0, i.e., publicly available material without copyright) to copyrighted material. The left side shows the areas of use of the licenses. The colors indicate how freely the material can be distributed, from dark green indicating great freedom for distribution and modification to yellow where no changes are allowed.
Image created by Shaddim. Shared with CC BY 4.0, from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Creative_commons_license_spectrum.svg
Publish Your Material Material
Published within Stockholm University
As an author, you hold the copyright and can make the publication freely available unless you have entered into a specific agreement prohibiting this.
Articles in Scholarly Journals
You may, as an author, have limited or waived your rights in a standard agreement with the publisher. However, most major publishers still allow articles to be made freely available provided certain conditions are met. If you want to know the policies regarding the journal you have published in, you can look up the journal's publisher policy in SHERPA/RoMEO. See also Parallel Publishing in DiVA below.
For many journal publishers, there are also overarching agreements for publishing with open access, where the library can wholly or partially cover the publication cost.
Free and Discounted Publishing Fees
Theses
For monograph theses published by the institution, and for the compilation thesis, you as the author hold the copyright and can make the thesis/comprehensive summary ("kappan") freely available.
If the monograph thesis is published by a publishing house, you need to contact the publisher and request permission to make the thesis freely available.
For articles included in the thesis, the agreements made with the respective publishers apply. Contact the publisher and request permission to make the article freely available.
Other Material
For other materials such as books, anthology contributions, published conference papers, reports, etc., you can contact the publisher and request permission to make the material freely available.
Regarding contracts for book projects, the procedures are often different, and as an author, you need to ensure that your rights are safeguarded and that you can use and make the material available as part of your research work. You can learn more about what to consider when signing a contract with a publisher in this checklist.
Publisher Contract Checklist Pdf, 312.2 kB.
Copyright organisations
- Bildleverantörernas förening
- Bildombudsmannen
- Bildupphovsrätt
- Bonus Copyright Access
- Online Art
- Svenska Fotografers Förbund