What is third-party copyright?

Third-party copyright is material which is not your own work, and can include:

  • Photographs you did not take
  • Sections of text that have been previously published in a journal, book or document
  • Long quotations from other works, even where properly attributed
  • Material for which a patent was granted
  • Models, plans and diagrams
  • Maps and land/ordnance surveys
  • Images of paintings (including portraits) and other artworks
  • Figures and tables taken from other publications or online
  • Video and audio clips (including film, animation and sound recordings)
  • Music scores
  • Computer software and code.

It may also include material which was written or created by you but, because of an agreement you have entered into with a publisher or other party, you do not hold the copyright (e.g. a journal article or conference paper).

It doesn’t matter whether the material comes from a print/physical source or from an online/digital one – copyright still applies. In most cases copyright lasts 70 years from the death of the creator.