Permissions Information for Journal Authors: Other Permissions Information

Public Domain

Works are in the public domain when they do not (or no longer) enjoy copyright protection. This status is usually based on the work’s age, or the circumstances of its creation (e.g., works produced by US government employees in the course of their normal duties are usually in the public domain). Because they are not protected by copyright, works in the public domain can be used freely without permission.

IMPORTANT: Works are not in the public domain simply because they are available/accessible online. Posting text, images, etc. on social media or other websites does not strip them of copyright protection, and an author seeking to reproduce material found online still needs to consider how copyright will be covered (fair use, public domain according to US law, permission, etc.).

What is in the public domain varies from country to country. Since Duke University Press is a US-based publisher, our authors should focus primarily on US law when determining if a work they would like to use is public domain, even if the work originates outside the US The pages below are excellent resources:

• Cornell Libraries’ Chart of Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States - Explains when material falls into the US public domain.
• Stanford Libraries’ Copyright & Fair Use: Welcome to the Public Domain - Highlights factors other than age that may put material in the public domain.

When a work’s public domain status is unclear, or the work is public domain in its country of origin but not in the US, asserting fair use may be a good option.

Creative Commons Licenses

Duke University Press can accept most Creative Commons licenses, such as those listed below. If any of your licenses carry the “No Derivatives” (ND) or “Share Alike” (SA) extensions, you may be asked to confirm that your use is fair use, or that the underlying material is in the public domain.

Authors should indicate the license their material carries in their permissions documentation:

• CC0 1.0 Universal – Public Domain Dedication
• CC BY 2.0 - Attribution Generic 
• CC BY 3.0 - Attribution Unported 
• CC BY 4.0 - Attribution International
• CC BY-ND 2.0 - Attribution NoDerivs Generic 
• CC BY-ND 4.0 - Attribution No Derivatives International 

Due Diligence

An author struggling to obtain permission and thinking about due diligence should contact their journal’s editorial office as early as possible for guidance.

For permissions purposes, due diligence refers to an author’s sincere but unsuccessful efforts to obtain copyright permission from a rights holder. Unlike fair use, due diligence is not an exception to copyright law that can serve in lieu of permission. Against a copyright infringement claim, it may only slightly blunt the impact. Duke University Press therefore considers due diligence an option of last resort. Authors should consider fair use and other alternatives first.

If fair use does not apply, the author has exhausted all avenues to obtain permission, and both the editorial office and Duke University Press agree, a due diligence record can be assembled and submitted. All correspondence sent by the author should be provided in its original context (full emails, copies of letters sent, etc.). The author should also describe their efforts to determine the copyright holder, the ways in which contact was attempted, and the outcomes. For example:

• “Attempted [X] times to contact rights holder by e-mail at [specific e-mail address] provided by [source]. All messages were returned as undeliverable.”
• “Called apparent rights holder [X] times at [specific number] found in [source], but calls were not returned/the person reached could not provide requested information/the number was disconnected. [Details regarding date/time/person reached if any, etc.].”
• “Sent a letter by certified mail on [date] to the apparent rights holder at [specific address] provided by [university they recently retired from], but received no response/letter returned as undeliverable.”
• “Copyright holder of record no longer exists/publication is defunct. Last known source using the item [publisher/author name] was not able to clear copyright because they could not find successors/heirs.”

The bar for due diligence is high. Multiple methods of contacting the rights holder should be used, such as phone and email and surface mail. Since not responding can be a way of silently denying permission, the strongest due diligence cases will be those that show the rights holder was literally impossible to contact (e.g., not that they did not respond to an email by a date set by the author, but that the message bounced back as undeliverable).

For works produced outside the US, due diligence should also indicate what copyright laws apply.