Part I offered several tips on copyright issues related to submitting to a journal. Below you will find additional information that may better prepare you to manage rights for submitting your work to a journal.
As you compose your article, keep track of all your sources. And, as we advise often in The Copyright Detective blog, give yourself and your project ample time for permission requests to be answered. Sometimes replies to grant requests can take weeks, even months.
The Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) may be a good source for obtaining permission for some copyrighted items from academic, technical, and medical material. Replies to requests from the CCC may be immediate since you can make the request online. Do be aware that if the CCC labels the item as needing a special request, a reply will likely not come back overnight. You may be well advised in such cases, to go directly to the source, if possible, to make the request.
The journal you are submitting to may be a signatory to the International Association of Scientific, Technical, and Medical Publishers (STM). If the journal you are submitting to is a signatory of this association and the journal you wish to borrow from is also a signatory, you may be allowed limited use of copyrighted items from the journal you are borrowing from. You can download STM permissions guidelines here: http://www.stm-assoc.org/permissions-guidelines/.
Journals will require that you credit the source granting permission. The source will likely specify how the credit should read. A simple way to manage rights acquired is a tracking log that captures key information during the acquisition process.
Changes in borrowed content require permission to make changes and that you supply a credit that states changes of the original were made. Such changes will likely require requests by made directly to the source. The CCC may not be able to grant rights in such cases
And, lastly, don’t forget to determine what rights to your articles you maintain in submitting to any publication. In many instances, you may, in the future, have to obtain rights to republish portions of your own article or to grant others the right to use content from your article.
Want More About Copyright Law?
Order your copy of Copyright Clearance for Creatives for a basic overview of copyright law and essential guidelines on when, how, and where to get permission to use copyright content in your works.