Policy Press

Permissions and copyright

Definition 

Copyright applies to all unpublished work and, in the United Kingdom, to published works until the end of the 70th year after the author’s death or, if first published posthumously, 70 years from the end of the year of publication.  

Material needing permission 

Any material covered by copyright must have permission to be reproduced in one of our books. This includes anything online, that is not ‘in the public domain’ as anything and everything posted online is covered by copyright. Permission must always be obtained for any table, figure, map and so on, that is reproduced in its entirety from any other work. If it is significantly adapted from the original, then it should be referenced as, for example, ‘Adapted from Smith (2008)’. 

Song lyrics and photographs also require permission. Getting permission for song lyrics is really difficult so if permission has not been cleared before final typescript delivery they will need to be removed from the text. 

Flickr and Wikipedia: All images on Flickr and Wikipedia are covered by a licence. Some images are covered by a Creative Commons licence that allows use free of charge but not all, so you must check the specific licence before using the image. 

Fair Dealing (no permission required) 

UK Copyright law allows people to quote insubstantial amounts from an author’s work, without having to ask permission if it is for the following uses which fall under Fair Dealing: 

In all cases, acknowledgement must be given to the author and the title of the work quoted. 

You do not need to ask permission if you are using a short quote for one of these purposes. 

It is also considered that permission is not required for a passage of less than 400 words or for several short passages from the same work adding up to less than 800 words as long as the separate passages are less than 300 words each.  

Responsibility 

Authors/editors are responsible for requesting and obtaining permission for the use of copyright material which is outlined in their book contract and the Editorial and Production Guidelines. PP contributes up to £100 towards the cost. 

US copyright 

US copyright is more lenient than UK copyright but we must abide by UK law. 

PLSclear 

Direct any permission queries to: www.PLSclear.com. This is the easiest way to submit a permissions query to any publisher. PLSclear (run by the Publishers Licencing Services) finds the correct publisher and sends through a request to the publisher on your behalf.