FIGURE PERMISSION GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS

FIGURE PERMISSION

GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. KEY POINTS AND USEFUL DEFINITIONS .......................................................................... 2

1.1. Key Points ............................................................................................................................ 2

1.2. Useful Definitions ................................................................................................................ 2

2. HOW TO INCLUDE ATTRIBUTION AND PERMISSION IN CAPTIONS .......................... 3

3. OBTAINING PERMISSIONS ................................................................................................... 4

3.1. Using Copyright Clearance Center/RightsLink ................................................................... 4

3.2. Requesting Permission Directly from a Copyright Holder .................................................. 4

4. COMMON FIGURE TYPES AND HOW TO PROCEED ........................................................ 5

4.1. Original Figures ................................................................................................................... 5

4.1.1. Original figure: created by you or a coauthor of this article for this article ................. 5

4.1.2. Original figure: created for you by an artist, illustrator, or photographer .................... 6

4.1.3. Original figure: created by you or a coauthor of this article from data ........................ 6

4.2. Copyrighted Figures............................................................................................................. 7

4.2.1. Copyrighted figure: previously published by you or a coauthor of this article ............ 7

4.2.2. Copyrighted figure: previously published .................................................................... 7

4.2.3. Copyrighted figure: previous publication refers to a different source .......................... 8

4.2.4. Copyrighted figure: created by person/organization who retains copyright ................. 8

4.2.5. Copyrighted figure: published in a different Annual Reviews article .......................... 9

4.3. Noncopyrighted, Nonoriginal Figures ................................................................................. 9

4.3.1. Public domain images ................................................................................................... 9

4.3.2. Open access and/or Creative Commons images ......................................................... 10

1. KEY POINTS AND USEFUL DEFINITIONS

1.1. Key Points

• Unless you or your coauthor created a completely original figure for your current Annual

Reviews article, you must credit the source of the image, and you may need to obtain

permission and pay usage fees.

• Redrawing or modifying a figure does not change who holds the copyright, nor does

replotting data to create a figure that looks just like a previously published version. If the

creators of a source figure could recognize your work as based on theirs, copyright still

applies and you must obtain permission.

• Provide all relevant source, citation, and/or permission information in the caption.

• Because Annual Reviews modifies most figures to conform to house style, be sure to

obtain permission to modify/adapt figures if possible.

• Images found online or elsewhere without attribution cannot be assumed to be copyright-

free and probably should not be used.

• Permission to reuse most figures published in scholarly journals and some books may be

obtained through Copyright Clearance Center/RightsLink

(https://www.copyright.com/get-permissions/). Obtain permission while you are

preparing your figures, prior to submitting your manuscript, to avoid delays or surprise

fees later. Detailed instructions are provided in Section 3.1.

• If you wish to reuse figures that you or a coauthor previously published elsewhere, you

may not need to obtain permission depending on the terms of the contract with the

original publisher. See Section 4.2.1 for details.

• In general, authors are responsible for paying any fees associated with permissions for

figures they wish to reuse from other publications, as stated in the Annual Reviews

Author Handbook. However, Annual Reviews has a small budget to help authors with

such fees if paying them would pose a hardship. Even so, authors may need to cover

some fees and/or choose different images if they wish to reproduce several figures at high

cost.

• To streamline your process, obtain high-resolution and/or editable vector files when you

seek permission. If an image is not high resolution and/or editable vector, it may not be

publishable by Annual Reviews. See our Author Graphics Guide for more information.

• If you plan to use a figure or data that are embargoed (in press and prohibited from being

used elsewhere until a certain date), please inform your Production Editor and Illustration

Editor immediately.

• If you are reproducing all or part of a previously published table, the guidelines in this

document apply. You will need to provide attribution and may need permission. Indicate

the credit line as a footnote to the table.

1.2. Useful Definitions

Permission: The source publication must be asked if the figure can be reused and say

yes. After permission is granted, generally attribution is required as well.

Attribution: The source publication or image creator is given credit, generally in a credit

line in the figure caption. There are specific cases in which attribution but not permission

is needed; see the specific guidelines and caption wording examples in Section 4.

Credit line: The statement in a figure caption that provides attribution to the source of a

figure, panel, or image.

Adapted: Use this term when some modifications have been made, even if very slight,

such as text, scale bars, or arrows. Most final images in Annual Reviews figures have

been adapted.

Reproduced: Use this term when an image is published with no changes whatsoever

(e.g., a photo that has no arrows or labels at all).

2. HOW TO INCLUDE ATTRIBUTION AND PERMISSION IN CAPTIONS

Provide all relevant source, citation, and/or permission information in the figure caption.

Separate credit lines may be necessary for different panels within a figure or even for different

images within a panel if they are from different sources or if some panels are original but others

are not. In general, include credit lines at the very end of the caption, after any abbreviations list.

However, it is OK to place credit lines following descriptions of each panel within a complex

caption. If credit lines appear with panel descriptions, the panel letter does not need to be

included, but the word “panel” should be.

Use the following general format for credit lines:

The license granting permission to reuse a figure may include a recommended credit line.

However, Annual Reviews’ short citations (reference number or author name and date,

depending on the style of the particular Annual Reviews journal) can stand in for the complete

reference information specified in most licenses.

3. OBTAINING PERMISSIONS

3.1. Using Copyright Clearance Center/RightsLink

• Begin by checking the caption of the figure in the publication where you found it to see if

previous source/citation/permission information is indicated. If so, you may need to

obtain permission from the previous source publication instead or in addition (refer to

Section 4.2.3).

• If you are viewing an HTML version of an article with a figure you would like to use,

click “Get permissions,” “Get rights and content,” “Reprints and permissions,” or similar

(different publishers use different wording) to be taken directly to the RightsLink form

for that article. Alternatively, visit https://www.copyright.com/get-permissions/ and enter

the source publication’s data.

• Fill out the online form from your point of view, not the point of view of Annual

Reviews. The bullets below cover the most common questions, but note that not all may

be asked, and different publishers may use slightly different wording.

o Annual Reviews publishes journals. You would like to “reuse in a journal or

magazine” or similar.

o You most likely are an “academic/university or research institute” or similar.

o Annual Reviews is a nonprofit publisher; our audience is academic and

educational. However, Annual Reviews is not an STM signatory and will not

appear in a list of STM publishers, if provided. Choose “Other” or “Not in List.”

o The format is most likely print + electronic. However, some Annual Reviews

journals are published online only and need only electronic rights (ask your

Production Editor or Illustration Editor if in doubt).

o You would like to use figures/tables/illustrations or similar.

o For circulation/distribution/lifetime unit quantity, choose 999, <999, 500-999, or

similar, depending on the options presented.

o For rights requested, answer “Main product” or similar.

o For duration of use, answer “Life of the current edition” or similar; Annual

Reviews publishes only a single edition of each volume of its journals. If the

question asks for a number of years, choose “forever.”

o Annual Reviews journals are published in English only; answer “no” to questions

about translation.

o Answer “no” to questions about copies for the disabled.

o Answer “no” to questions about promotional use.

o Answer “yes” to questions about editing privileges; Annual Reviews’ Illustration

Editors make modifications to most figures to ensure clarity and a consistent style

across an article and volume.

o Leave “Publisher imprint” field blank; Annual Reviews does not have imprints.

• Even if RightsLink says that there is no fee for a permission, you still need to go through

the full process to obtain the reuse license.

3.2. Requesting Permission Directly from a Copyright Holder

• If permission cannot be obtained through Copyright Clearance Center/RightsLink,

contact the copyright holder to request permission. The following is a sample of a

permission request letter/email:

I am writing a literature review article for the 20XX volume of the Annual Review of XXX

and would like to reproduce an image from [SOURCE]. Annual Reviews is a nonprofit

publisher dedicated to synthesizing and integrating knowledge for the progress of science

and the benefit of society. Here are the article details:

Title:

Authors:

Expected publication date:

Print/Electronic:

Distribution: Worldwide

Brief note about the intended usage: [one panel, adapted with minor edits for font/color,

etc.]

Please let us know if you need any additional information in order to grant this request.

4. COMMON FIGURE TYPES AND HOW TO PROCEED

Use this quick guide to find the type of figure you have and the section in which it is discussed.

4.1. Original Figures

4.1.1. Original figure: created by you or a coauthor of this article for this article

The figure was entirely created by you or a coauthor for this article, has never been published,

and was not based in whole or in part on a previously published figure (even one you or a

coauthor created).

• No attribution needed in caption. No permission needed.

• For our records, include a note telling us that this is an original figure you or a coauthor

created for this article.

o Example: [**Note to Annual Reviews: We created this figure for this article; it is

not based on any previously published image.**]

• Copyright will belong to Annual Reviews, but substantial rights for future use are

automatically granted back to you as the author (no permission needed). See

https://www.annualreviews.org/page/authors/author-instructions/submitting/copyright-

guidelines.

4.1.2. Original figure: created for you by an artist, illustrator, or photographer

The figure was entirely created for this article by someone who is not an author on the article,

has never been published, and was not based in whole or in part on a previously published figure

(even one you or a coauthor created).

• Image attribution is needed in caption. Copyright may need to be indicated.

o Refer to your contract/agreement with the creator of the image and include the

attribution specified. If this was a work for hire, or if there are specific terms of

o Thanking the creator of any figures/images in the acknowledgments may be done

if desired, but attribution must still appear in each relevant caption.

• If no copyright is indicated in the caption, copyright of the version we publish will belong

to Annual Reviews, but substantial rights for future use are automatically granted back to

you as the author (no permission needed). See

https://www.annualreviews.org/page/authors/author-instructions/submitting/copyright-

guidelines.

• Examples of wording for credit line in caption:

o Electron micrographs in panel c provided by M. Peterman.

Note that “provided by” is preferred to “courtesy of.”

o Illustration created by John Smith.

The word photograph may also be used.

4.1.3. Original figure: created by you or a coauthor of this article from data

The figure was entirely created for this article by you or a coauthor using data published or made

available by someone else, or data collected by you or a coauthor on your Annual Reviews

article. This includes experimental images that are used to inform the creation of a novel

diagram. The figure should not closely resemble previously published representations of the

same data. Data cannot be copyrighted; however, a specific visual presentation of data (e.g., a

graph or figure) can be copyrighted. Compare with Section 4.2.2; contact your Production Editor

if you are unsure which case your figure falls into.

• No permission needed.

• Data attribution is needed in caption.

• For unpublished data, you must obtain the permission of the data’s creator. If you or a

coauthor is the creator of the unpublished data, please add a mention of that. Note that

some Annual Reviews journals do not allow the inclusion of unpublished work. (Check

your journal’s guidelines or ask your Production Editor.)

• Copyright will belong to Annual Reviews, but substantial rights for future use are

automatically granted back to you as the author (no permission needed). See

https://www.annualreviews.org/page/authors/author-instructions/submitting/copyright-

guidelines.

• Examples of wording for credit line in caption:

o Data from References 100, 103–105, 109, and 111.

o Data from http://www.abc.com.

o Unpublished data provided by John Smith.

o Diagrams in panels a–c based on experimental images from Hassan & Porter

(2018).

4.2. Copyrighted Figures

4.2.1. Copyrighted figure: previously published by you or a coauthor of this article

You or a coauthor on your Annual Reviews article created the figure for a different journal

article, book, website, etc.

• Check the policy of the source publisher (or your contract with them) regarding authors

adapting or reproducing their own figures. In some cases, publishers grant authors reuse

rights as part of the contract such that permission is not needed. In other cases, you will

need to obtain permission to reuse a figure you created. Often this permission has no fee,

but sometimes fees do apply.

o If the source publisher is Annual Reviews, substantial reuse rights for future use

are automatically granted back to authors. No permission is needed, but

attribution is.

• Whenever possible, use images only from published articles and other works or from

articles that are at least in press and have been posted online by the publisher as early

view, epub ahead of print, or similar (terminology varies by publisher). Do not use

images from preprints or manuscripts in preparation, in review at a journal, or accepted

by a journal but not yet published online, especially if such manuscripts must publish

prior to your Annual Reviews article. If use of a figure from an article that is not yet in

press is essential, contact your Production Editor for more information about potential

• Attribution is needed in the caption; permission may be needed.

• Examples of wording for credit line in caption:

o Figure adapted from Reference 101. [**Note to Annual Reviews: I am an author

of this article; the publisher grants authors the right to reuse their own figures

without permission.**]

o Panel b adapted with permission from Potter & Stravinsky (2013); copyright

2013.

4.2.2. Copyrighted figure: previously published

The figure has appeared in a journal, book, website, etc., and the source author or publisher

retains copyright. Do not assume that an image you find online without attribution or a copyright

symbol is public domain. All images/creative works are copyrighted by their authors, even if the

author is not indicated, unless the author has specifically given up copyright or copyright has

expired. Furthermore, redrawing or modifying a figure does not change who holds the copyright,

nor does replotting data to create a figure that looks just like a previously published version. If

the creator of an image could recognize your work as based on theirs, copyright still applies and

you must obtain permission.

• Always check the caption of any published image you want to reuse to see if a previous

source, license, or copyright is indicated. If so, refer to Section 4.2.3.

• You must obtain permission from the copyright holder (usually the publisher) and pay

any associated fee.

o Note that PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) does not

require permission for reuse of figures in review articles, but the wording of the

credit line depends on the year of publication. Check the specific article from

which you wish to reuse figures for the license terms and appropriate credit line.

• Annual Reviews modifies most figures to conform to our house style, so be sure to ask

for permission to modify/adapt the figure.

o It is very difficult or impossible to obtain permission to modify figures created by

some organizations, such as the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change). If a figure cannot be modified, note this along with your initial

submission so our Illustration Editors are aware that they should not edit the

figure.

• Attribution and permission information are needed in caption; follow the requirements of

the copyright holder. Annual Reviews’ short citations (reference number or author name

and date, depending on the style of the particular Annual Reviews journal) often can

stand in for the complete citation specified in most licenses.

• Examples of wording for credit line in caption:

o Figure adapted with permission from Reference 100.

American Chemical Society.

4.2.3. Copyrighted figure: previous publication refers to a different source

The figure has appeared in a journal, book, website, etc., and that author or publisher does not

hold the original copyright. Always check the caption of any image you want to reuse to see if it

refers to a previous source, license, or copyright. Redrawing or modifying a figure does not

change who holds the copyright, nor does replotting data to create a figure that looks just like a

previously published version. If the creator of an image could recognize your work as based on

theirs, copyright still applies and you must obtain permission.

• If the identical image was published somewhere else first, seek permission and include

attribution of the source publication only.

• If the image was published somewhere else first, but you want to use the adapted version

in the most recent publication, you should seek permission from and include attribution

for both sources.

• If the image was published elsewhere first under a Creative Commons (CC) license,

check the terms of the license to determine the appropriate attribution and if permission

is needed from the adapting publication (see Section 4.3.2).

• For these complex situations, contact your Production Editor or Illustration Editor for

guidance on the wording of the credit line in the caption.

4.2.4. Copyrighted figure: created by person/organization who retains copyright

The image was created by an artist, photographer, organization, or company who holds

photo website, or an online library of scientific clip art. Redrawing or modifying a figure does

not change who holds the copyright, nor does replotting data to create a figure that looks just like

a previously published version. If the creator of an image could recognize your work as based on

theirs, copyright still applies and you must obtain permission.

• You must obtain their permission and pay any associated fee.

• Annual Reviews modifies most figures to conform to our house style, so be sure to ask

for permission to modify/adapt the figure.

• Image attribution, and possibly a copyright notice, is needed in the caption; follow the

requirements of the copyright holder.

• Examples of wording for credit line in caption:

o Photo in panel b reproduced with permission; copyright Jane Doe, ABC Inc.

http://www.abc.com.

o Photo reproduced with permission from Michael Jones.

o Figure adapted from images created with BioRender.com.

o Figure adapted from Coronavirus Replication Cycle by BioRender.com (2020),

retrieved from https://app.biorender.com/biorender-templates.

o Plant illustrations copyright Ilya Kalinin (http://stock.adobe.com).

4.2.5. Copyrighted figure: published in a different Annual Reviews article

The figure appeared in a previously published Annual Reviews journal article by an author who

is not an author on the current article. If the author is a coauthor on the current article, refer to

Section 4.2.1.

• Citation and permission information are needed in caption.

• Check the Annual Reviews published caption to see if a previous source, license, or

o If no other source is listed, Annual Reviews can easily grant permission directly;

there is no need to go through RightsLink. Please include a note in your

manuscript that the source of the figure is another Annual Reviews article, or

contact your Production Editor or Illustration Editor directly for assistance.

Example: [**Note to Annual Reviews: Figure # is from another Annual

Reviews article. Could you assist with securing permission?**]

o If another source is listed in the caption, then permission may be needed from the

source publication. Refer to Section 4.2.3.

• Examples of wording for credit line in caption:

Reviews.

4.3. Noncopyrighted, Nonoriginal Figures

4.3.1. Public domain images

Do not assume that an image you find online without attribution or a copyright symbol is public

domain. All images/creative works are copyrighted by their authors, even if the author is not

indicated, unless the author has specifically given up copyright or copyright has expired. Images

created by US federal government agencies are always public domain. Copyright may expire

after many years for images, texts, and other works, putting them in the public domain. When

this happens depends on the country of creation/publication; consult the copyright laws of the

relevant country.

• No permission is needed.

• Image attribution/citation is needed in caption.

• For images obtained from a nonjournal website, provide the URL.

• Examples of wording for credit line in caption:

o Photo in panel a by John Smith, USDA (public domain).

o Photo from http://www.wikipedia.org/image001.jpg (public domain).

o Figure adapted from a public domain diagram by NASA.

4.3.2. Open access and/or Creative Commons images

Images previously published in open access journals or books most likely are covered by

Creative Commons (CC) licenses, although some small publishers have created custom open

access licenses. This may include figures you or a coauthor created but previously published

elsewhere. Some other online image sources, such as Wikimedia, also use CC licenses. Note that

the term “open access” means a publication is free to read; it does not mean anything in regard to

reuse. When using an image from an open access source, always check the exact terms of the

license to determine terms of reuse.

• Permission usually is not needed, but confirm this in the open access license.

• Image attribution is needed in caption. This attribution may be to an online handle rather

than a name, especially for sources such as Wikimedia.

• Some open access journals charge fees for high-resolution figures. Contact your

Illustration Editor if you have questions about adequate resolution.

• For images obtained from a nonjournal website, provide the URL.

• For CC images, specify the type of license using its abbreviation (note spaces and

hyphenation for credit lines) and include the URL of the license if possible.

o CC BY (Creative Commons Attribution)

o CC BY-SA (Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike)

o CC BY-NC (Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial)

o CC BY-ND (Creative Commons Attribution No Derivatives)

o CC BY-NC-SA (Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike)

o CC BY-NC-ND (Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No

Derivatives)

o A CC license may also include a number or other information, e.g., 3.0 Unported.

o More information on what each CC license means is available at

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.

• Under CC licenses that include ND, the image cannot be modified. It is important to

include this license along with your initial submission so our Illustration Editors are

aware that they should not edit the figure. However, if you or one of your coauthors are

an author on the original publication and retain copyright, you can give Annual Reviews

permission to modify the figure.

• Under CC licenses that include SA, copyright cannot belong to Annual Reviews;

therefore, credit lines in the captions for these images must clearly indicate the license

terms.

• Although Annual Reviews is a nonprofit publisher, it is generally not considered

noncommercial for the purposes of CC licenses because it sells scholarly journals.

However, images with CC licenses including NC typically can still be included in Annual

Reviews articles after obtaining permission and paying any applicable fees.

• Examples of wording for credit line in caption:

o Figure adapted from Smith (2020) (CC BY 4.0).

o Panel b adapted from Catherine Hare/Wikipedia

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misinformation_effect) (CC BY-SA 3.0).

o Figure adapted from an image created using Servier Medical Art (CC BY 3.0

Unported).