I am writing a (review) article for an IOP journal. Do I need to obtain permission for reproducing figures taken from prior publications?
Yes, the use of all material that has been published previously must be approved by the Publisher in each case and, depending on the Publisher’s policy, the author as well, before it can be used in any IOP article (whether a normal paper or a review article). This assumes that the Publisher owns the rights but you should check to see if there is a citation next to the figure indicating that copyright is in fact owned by a third party. If that is the case then that third party’s permission should be sought. The permission request form can be customised for use when making such requests and all responses should be submitted to the IOP journal, along with the article. Note that IOP is a signatory to the STM 2003 Permissions Guidelines. This is an agreement between Publishers which allows signatory Publishers to use small numbers of figures and small amounts of text in journal articles free of charge. If the Publisher who owns the copyright in the figure you wish to use is also a signatory
