Permissions

Obtaining Permissions for Third Party Materials

SISP requires that an author obtain permissions from rights holders prior to submission of final manuscript. Permissions are required for third-party graphics/figures/images, some Smithsonian-owned graphics/figures/images, and protected text that does not fall under fair use (e.g., poetry, song lyrics).

Use SISP’s “Do I Need to Get Permission?” decision tree to:

• Determine if permission is needed.
• Determine what type of permission document is needed.
• See a list of the types of permission documents SISP will accept.

Use Permission Request for Third-Party Materials – Open Access to send to rights holders. Licensers may ask you to use their form instead; please ensure all rights listed in SISP’s form are granted in any license you receive.

Requesting Permission to Use SISP Content

SISP publications released on SISP’s open access portal on Figshare are published under Creative Commons licenses. If your intended use is covered under the work’s CC license, no permission is needed.

For publications not made available on Figshare:

• Non-commercial use: If you wish to reproduce text and/or figures originally published by SISP and the material is not credited to the Smithsonian Institution, one of its museums/research facilities or staff, or a third party, Smithsonian’s Terms of Use apply. The original publication must be appropriately cited.
• Commercial use: Email SISP.

For more on copyright protection of Smithsonian online content, see the Smithsonian Institution’s Terms of Use.