Meet Dorine Kieft, copyright specialist

That depends:

• If you have retained the copyright yourself, for example by publishing it open access, you can decide for yourself what you do with your work. You can distribute it without restrictions, for example via your own website or via Pure. You can use it for teaching purposes and you can modify it and make it a new publication.

• If you have transferred the copyright to your publication to a publisher, the contract will state what you as the author are allowed to do with your publication. You will probably need permission from the publisher if you want to distribute your publication (for example via your own website or the website of a third party) or reuse it (for example, bundled with other publications).
  
  However, your publication may become available in full text via Pure after six months. See: ‘Taverne Amendment’.

  The pre-print and post-print versions of your article will generally allow you to do more. On SHERPA/RoMEO you will find information about the conditions for publishers and the rights that authors have to make an article freely accessible on their own website or in a repository.

Free - What is always permitted?

There are a few ways to include images in Brightspace without infringing copyright or incurring additional costs.

• Using links: Using links to refer to an image in a digital resource (for which the UB has a license) is always permitted.

• Open Content: Images published under a Creative Commons license can always be reused and uploaded to Brightspace free of charge, provided you adhere to the terms of the specific license. There are a lot of images online that are shared openly. Europeana has a large database of open-access historical art and photos. AnatomyTOOL offers open educational resources for anatomy. You can also use the Creative Commons website to search for open-access images on Pixabay and Flickr.
  
  On this page of our Open Education LibGuide you will find several websites that host open images.

• Quotations: Using an image as substantive support for scientific purposes is allowed. Remember to use a proper reference.This only applies if an image is a relevant addition, so no funny or entertaining pictures for decorative purposes.
  

Paid extracts

Easy access

Each year, the UG/UMCG pays an advance amount for materials used and for which no prior permission had to be requested. This amount is based on the size and number of extracts used in the previous year.

Easy Access: what is permitted?

You can use no more than 25 images from a publication, with no more than 10 images from the same creator.
Please note: The number of images used for the entire course are added together. For example, if you use 14 images from the same publication twice within the same course, this no longer counts as Easy Access.
For every image you are required to cite the source; see Frequently Asked Questions on how to make a proper citation.

Longer extracts?

If you want to use more than 25 images, or more than 10 images from the same creator, you must obtain the explicit prior permission of the copyright holder, for which a fee is often charged.

If you want to use a long extract from a source, the University Library can also find out whether the source is available to purchase (digitally), so that students can have access to it. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with us if you need advice or support regarding long extracts: copyright rug.nl. UMCG staff may contact auteursrecht umcg.nl.

Be critical of extracts: retain more resources for other educational matters

Wherever possible, use the free options described above. If this does not work, keep the extract as short as possible (within Easy Access, a short extract costs less than a medium extract). In this way, the RUG/UMCG retains more money for other educational matters. Read more about the RUG/UMCG's policy on the reuse of copyrighted works in education.

Placing (publishing) hyperlinks is not considered copying or duplication and therefore does not infringe anyone’s copyrights. The prerequisite is that the information has been published legally.

See: How to create a reliable link.

No. Signing a standard publishing agreement that transfers the entire copyright to the publisher is not always necessary, nor is it to your advantage. A contract represents an agreement between two parties. Publishers will usually have a standard contract for publishing material but that does not mean that it cannot be changed. Be clear about what you want and ask your publisher to include it in the contract. It is often a matter of negotiation but you are certainly not obliged to sign a standard agreement just like that.

Negotiate!

The standard contract used by your publisher is not binding as long as you do not sign it. Amendments can be made if you resist pressure from the publisher and communicate with them. You can negotiate the terms of the contract. Ask yourself: is this an exclusive license? Can the license be terminated?

Before and after negotiation

The most effective technique is to delete unwanted terms and write and initialize the changes you want.

The Dutch universities, in collaboration with SURF, have prepared an example of a License to Publish that you can use as a template.