Reusing Published Figures: Permissions and Licences

A borrowed figure without the right licence or permission can stall your submission or have to come out later. Most of the work is finding out who owns it.

Guide · 11 min read · Directive Publications Editorial Team

Start with who owns the figure

Every published figure has a rights holder, and your first job is to find out who that is. Two places tell you.

1. The article's licence statement, usually on the article web page and the first page of the PDF. A subscription article typically names the publisher or a society as copyright holder; an open access article typically names the authors and gives a Creative Commons licence.
2. The figure legend. A line such as "Reproduced with permission from" means the figure belongs to someone else, even inside an open access article.

Many medical journals follow the ICMJE Recommendations, which tell authors to acknowledge the original source of a previously published figure and submit written permission from the copyright holder. ICMJE says permission is required irrespective of authorship or publisher, except for documents in the public domain.

Do not assume an article's licence covers everything inside it. The Creative Commons FAQ notes that openly licensed works can include third-party content and tells reusers to make sure they have permission for it.

On that last row: US copyright law does not protect works of the US Government, but CDC, for example, notes that some images on its sites were developed by contractors or grantees or licensed from a third party.

What each Creative Commons licence lets you do

Reusing CC BY figures is the simple case. Creative Commons describes CC BY as letting reusers distribute, remix, adapt and build on the material in any medium, including for commercial use, as long as the creator is credited. You do not need to ask. The CC BY 4.0 legal code also requires you to indicate if you modified the material, so an adapted figure's credit must say so.

The other elements need more care:

Some journals will not accept restricted material at all. The PLOS licensing policy says PLOS cannot accept content under CC BY-NC, CC BY-SA or CC BY-ND terms, and asks for proof that third-party content is in the public domain, under a licence compatible with CC BY 4.0, or covered by written permission to publish it under CC BY 4.0. If your target journal publishes under CC BY, read its third-party content policy before you choose figures.

Preprints need the same check: medRxiv lets authors choose anything from CC BY or CC0 to no reuse without permission. If colleagues treat an open licence as "free to copy", our piece on open access myths explains why CC BY is built on attribution.

When you need permission

Use these decision rules:

• Figure from a subscription article. Ask the rights holder, usually through the publisher's permissions link on the article page.
• Figure credited to a third party. Go to that third party. Permission from the journal that reprinted it does not transfer to you.
• Openly licensed figure, but the licence does not fit your use. Ask the licensor, usually the authors, for the specific use, such as adapting a CC BY-ND figure.
• Your own figure. It depends on what you signed. Under CC BY you reuse it like anyone else. If you transferred copyright, your agreement may already allow it: Elsevier's author rights for subscription articles, for example, include reusing your own figures, tables and images in your own new works. Other publishers set different terms, so read yours and keep the clause ready in case your new journal asks.

Many publishers also sign the STM Permission Guidelines, a voluntary, reciprocal arrangement for free, limited reuse between signatories; the 2024 version allows up to three figures, tables or images from one signatory's works in a single journal article. The STM Association says the service is for participating publishers and that authors should refer to their own publisher, so tell your target journal which figures you want to reuse.

Fair use and fair dealing depend on jurisdiction and facts. For a figure in a manuscript, rely on a licence or written permission; fair use is not among the proofs PLOS lists.

Is redrawing a figure enough?

Often not. Copyright protects how a figure expresses information, so a close redraw can still copy what is protected. Elsevier's guidance says a redrawn figure that is substantially similar to the original needs permission, that changing colours or axis labels is never enough, and that best practice is to get permission wherever there is any similarity. A figure that is significantly different can be credited with phrases such as "Based on" or "Data from".

In a medical journal, one more rule can apply: ICMJE's guidance on tables asks authors who use data from another published or unpublished source to obtain permission and acknowledge that source fully. If your new figure compiles another group's numbers, ask your target journal whether it wants permission as well as a citation.

A decision rule that avoids arguments: if you opened the original figure to build yours, treat the result as an adaptation.

How to get permission to reuse a figure, step by step

1. Find the rights holder and licence. Read the licence statement and the legend, note any third-party credit, and record the DOI and figure number.
2. Check whether you already have the right. An open licence, your own author rights or public domain status may already cover your use. If so, go to step 6.
3. Define the use exactly. Reproduce unchanged or adapt (and how), the target journal, print and electronic formats, and the licence your article will carry. PLOS warns that purchased reuse terms are often restricted in ways that do not accommodate open access publication.
4. Send the request through the rights holder's route. Publishers such as Elsevier and Springer Nature put a permissions link on the article page that opens Copyright Clearance Center's RightsLink service. Where there is no link, or the rights holder is a person or a society, email them. If your journal provides a permission form, use it.
5. File the permission with your submission. Save the licence or written reply as a PDF named by figure number, and upload it or keep it where co-authors can find it.
6. Credit the figure in its legend. Use the patterns below and any wording the rights holder requires.

If the answer is no, or never comes. Silence is not permission. Use an openly licensed figure, build a genuinely new one from the data and cite it, or describe the finding and point readers to the original. If a request is still pending at submission, tell the editorial office which figure it affects.

A permission request you can adapt

Keep the licence sentence. Under CC BY, others can reuse your article too, so a grant made without knowing that may not be enough.

Credit lines for reproduced and adapted figures

Put the credit in the legend and the full citation in the reference list. Creative Commons recommends attribution that gives the title, author, source and licence, and notes any changes; in a journal article the reference supplies the first three.

Describe changes in a few words, such as "panels C and D removed". If the rights holder specifies exact wording, use it.

Teaching slides, theses and patient images

Teaching slides. A CC BY figure only needs credit. Otherwise, a lecture may be covered by a copyright exception, such as the UK's for illustration for instruction, which requires the use to be non-commercial, fair and acknowledged; by your institution's subscription licences; or by your author rights for your own papers. Slides you post publicly or sell are a different use, so ask your library's copyright service first.

Theses. Permission you obtained for a third-party figure in a journal article may not extend to a thesis posted in a repository. Check the terms of each grant.

Patient images. Copyright permission and patient consent are separate. ICMJE says identifying information, including in photographs, should not be published unless it is essential and the patient gives written informed consent for publication. A publisher can license an image, but it cannot consent for the patient, so ask your target journal what it needs or choose a non-identifiable image.

Before you submit

1. Every reused, adapted or redrawn figure is listed with its source DOI and figure number
2. The rights holder or licence is identified, including third-party credits inside open access articles
3. NC, SA and ND terms are checked against your target journal's licence
4. Written permission is on file wherever no licence covers the use, and it covers your article's licence
5. Every legend has a credit line that says what changed, and each source is in the reference list
6. Identifiable patient images are checked for consent, separately from copyright

Clear figures while you draft

Permissions are cheapest while you draft, when swapping a figure is easy. Add the permission files to your manuscript submission checklist so they travel with the manuscript. If you find after publication that a figure went out without the right permission, raise it with the journal; our guide to correcting the published record explains the routes.

Directive Publications' For Authors page states that its articles are published open access under a CC BY 4.0 licence. Check it before you write to a rights holder, so your request names the licence your article will carry.