MIT Libraries logo MIT Libraries

MIT logo Search Contact
Scholarly Communications – MIT Libraries
Scholarly Communications - MIT Libraries

Theses & copyright

Fair use and your thesis

There are two key questions to consider when determining whether you can reuse a figure, table, image, or other content in your thesis without obtaining permission from the copyright holder:

  • Is the figure copyrighted? For the most part the answer to this will be yes (see Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States). Generally, once the content was put in tangible form, and unless it was created prior to 1923 or is a US government publication, it is copyrighted.
  • Would your reuse be considered fair use?

MIT license agreements may allow reuse

You may not need to rely on fair use to use others’ work in your thesis. The MIT Libraries’ has license agreements with Elsevier, Sage, Springer, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley that allow authors to reuse figures without asking permission or paying any fee.

Find more information about using figures and other content from published works.

Obtaining permission for use

If you determine that you should seek permission to reuse someone’s work, here are some places to go:

  • Starting in 2023, students own copyright in their MIT theses. The Institute’s policy concerning ownership of thesis copyright is covered in Rules and Regulations of the Faculty, 2.73 and MIT Policies and Procedures 13.1.3. Students grant MIT a nonexclusive license to to reproduce, preserve, distribute and publicly display copies of the thesis, or release the thesis under an open-access license. If you want to use parts of an MIT thesis in which the student owns the copyright, you may need to contact the student for permission, or there may be an open (Creative Commons) license on the thesis that tells you what you can do with the work.
  • If you want to reuse parts of a student’s MIT thesis in which MIT owns the copyright, contact permissions-lib@mit.edu.
  • If you want to reuse a portion of a book or article, an efficient place to begin is the Copyright Clearance Center.
  • If you are seeking permission to reuse content from formats other than a book or article (e.g. music, plays, images, or film) consult the University of Texas Getting Permission page.

Using your own published articles in your thesis, or publishing articles from it

Journal publishers usually control copyright to scholarly articles. This theses and article publishing page shows publisher policies related to reuse of previously published articles in theses, and policies on accepting journal submissions on work that first appeared in a thesis.

Specifications for Thesis Preparation

This guide includes information on submission dates, fees, formatting, and copyright.