Please note that the information provided here is for general use only. For legally-binding advice, please contact either the the Center for Intellectual Property at TU Berlin (ZfgE) or a legal expert specializing in copyright law.
Good academic practice
When preparing a scientific publication, please refer to the “Statute on the Safeguarding of Good Academic Practice at TU Berlin” (15.02.2023) and the DFG’s “Guidelines for Safeguarding Research Practice” (01.07.2019).
Copyright Agreement / Contract
When making a deposit in the TU Berlin institutional repository DepositOnce or publishing with the publisher Berlin Universities Publishing Books, you sign a publishing contract with the University confirming the following: You give your assurance that you own the copyright to all parts of the work and that rights of third parties, in particular copyrights and moral rights, are not infringed by the publication.
FAQs
Quotations
A quotation is the unchanged use of another's intellectual property within the limits defined by Section 51 of the German Copyright Act (Urheberrechtsgesetz - UrhG) with full reference to the source.
The use of third-party content (text, graphics, photos, etc.) for the purpose of quotation is permitted under Section 51 UrhG if the purpose of using the quotation is justified, i.e. an intellectual discussion of the contents. Quotations must always serve as the basis for discussion or evidence of an author’s own arguments.
Quotation rights do not cover the use of third-party content for the purposes of illustration, information or in order for the author to avoid having to make their own arguments.
Use of third-party content exceeding the purpose of quotation as defined by quotation law requires permission from the respective publishers or authors. This is usually granted without difficulty.
For publications under a Creative Commons License, the author usually grants the right of use together with the license on condition that the author, the source, and the license are cited.
Maps
If you would like to insert map sections, we recommend using maps from Open Street Map. When using map material from other service providers (Google, etc.), please always obtain right of use. You must always cite the source.
Open Street Map
Photos, images, graphics
- If you would like to use images for illustrative purposes, either obtain right of use or use CC-licensed images. There are numerous databases listing Creative-Commons-licensed photos (e.g. Wikimedia Commons, OpenVerse, Flickr, etc.). Alternatively, use advanced image search engines (e.g. Google Image Search, etc.). Always correctly cite the source, the author, and the license.
- Before publishing your own images or graphics, we recommend that you carefully check which rights to your work you may be assigning to the publisher. One way to easily reuse or republish your own images or graphics is to pre-publish them under a free license on platforms such as figshare or Zenodo. Further information.
