Obtaining Copyright Permission
It is our experience at the Faculty of Graduate Studies that students and Advisors may not be aware of requirements in the Copyright Act with respect to obtaining copyright permission.
Graduate students need to understand that it is their responsibility to obtain written permission for copyrighted material in their thesis or practicum. This includes "stand-alone" items such as images, photography, tables, graphs, diagrams, figures, maps, poems, graphics, or "more than a reasonable extract" of another person′s work. Modified versions of another person′s work also require copyright clearance.
See Copyright, Publishing and Your Thesis for specific information about copyright issues, including how to obtain permission to use copyrighted material in your thesis.
Although permission is usually granted free of charge for educational or research purposes, some copyright owners may refuse a request or may demand a fee to use their work. It is possible to negotiate a fee or cancel the request.
If permission cannot be obtained to use copyrighted material in your thesis, remove it and cite the source instead, or provide an active URL if the work is available on the Web.
See the UM Copyright Office for more information about copyright, then test your copyright knowledge with the 20-question Copyright Quiz designed for UM graduate students, faculty and researchers.
