FAQ - frequently asked questions about copyright at DTU

When you write assignments, reports, presentations, and projects, you are the author of these, and therefore you own them.

If you make an exam project with a company, you should be aware that it can be a condition for the execution of the project that the rights to your written output are transferred to the company. If such conditions apply to your project with the company, they will appear from the agreement you sign with the company at the beginning of the project.

If you are a student, you own your software. If you are a teacher, you should remember that DTU automatically acquires all rights to software developed by DTU employees in connection with the employee’s tasks at DTU. It does not matter whether the software has been written within normal working hours or in your leisure time. Read more about legal and software.

If you are a student, you own your software.

If you are a teacher, you should remember that DTU automatically acquires all rights to software developed by DTU employees in connection with the employee’s tasks at DTU. Read more about legal and software.

Works are protected by copyright the moment they are created and meet the requirements of copyright law. In countries that have joined the Berne Convention, it is implied that the author is the person who created the work, and it is therefore not necessary to use the Copyright © symbol. It doesn’t hurt to emphasize your copyright in the USA by using ©, but it has no significance in the rest of the world.

As a rule, the rights to graphs or figures belong to the author (for instance the author of a scientific article), but often these rights have been handed over to the publisher that published the work in which the graphs or figures are published. Therefore, it is up to you to find out how you can obtain permission to use graphs and figures. 

Nonetheless, teachers and students may freely use graphs/tables/figures for ordinary teaching use if you follow the general quotation rules. 

The short answer is yes.

Pictures are protected by copyright, and as a rule it requires the author’s permission to use a picture. 

Graphs are, as a rule, not considered to fulfil the requirement about creativity that is necessary to obtain copyright protection. Graphs can therefore be freely used with due respect for any licences and good scientific practice (Read more about DTU’s code of conduct). 

Tables are, as a main rule, not protected by copyright. Tables can be considered as text but will only in rare cases be protected by copyright. Very complex data sets can, however, be protected in other ways. In these cases, data can be used in accordance with the code of conduct as well as the rules to which the data sets are subject, for instance conditions about confidentiality, GDPR or creative commons. In all cases, it is important with an indication of the source or crediting in agreement with good practice. 

Figures: If you want to use a figure in the form of a technical-describing drawing or other drawings in your ordinary teaching, you are free to do so, as such drawings are comprised by the Copydan agreement.

If you want to use a figure in the form of a technical-describing drawing or other drawings in your articles, such drawings cannot be used freely. The use of figures in the form of technical-describing drawings requires that you comply with the quotation rules. If you want to use figures in the form of other drawings, you must obtain permission from the author. 

No, AI generated images are not exempt from copyright. You should follow the normal copyright rules and procedures when using an image, regardless of the tools used to make it: get permission and cite the source.

If you create an image using generative AI, remember to credit yourself and check the terms of the tool you use, as you should with any tool or service you use.

There are different rules regarding the use of pictures depending on the context in which the pictures are used.

On this page you can read about the use of pictures in teaching. Read about the use of pictures in other contexts (theses, posters, conferences) on this page. 

When we talk about copyright, you should be aware of the distinction between pictures (drawings and photos) and figures (graphs and tables). 

Yes, but you may not use DTU’s name or logo in commercial contexts. 

Read more about the DTU design - or contact design@dtu.dk  

Trademarks (“Coca-cola,” “Apple”, “Windows”, etc.) in the form of a word or a logo are designations of a company’s name, product, or service. If you use them on slides in your teaching to identify products or services belonging to the company that sells or offers such products or services, it is, as a rule, no problem.

You should be aware that trademarks can be more than words and logos. Trademarks can for instance also be colours or the shape of the product. If an easily identifiable shape of a product is used, even though the logo has been retouched to eliminate it, it can be a violation of the trademark right to use the shape of the product.

In certain cases, it will not be directly unlawful to use or mention a trademark, but it is not always advisable to do so. You should therefore always consider the context in which the trademark will be used and be aware that the use of trademarks and logos can send strong political messages. 

Hvis det alene sker til almindelig undervisnings- og studiebrug på DTU, må du gerne.

Du må fx hente og bruge billeder fra åbne sider på internettet - det vil sige billeder, der ikke er bag en betalingsmur - men husk altid billedkreditering

Ja, hvis det alene sker til almindelig undervisnings- og studiebrug på DTU, må du gerne. Du må f.eks. hente og bruge billeder fra åbne sider på internettet (det vil sige billeder der ikke er bag en betalingsmur), men husk altid billedkreditering.  Læs mere om brug af billeder i forbindelse med undervisning.

No, as a rule you may not reforward files to which you have access as a student, e.g., journal articles.

Quotes:

• should be limited to the minimum necessary 
• may only be a minor part of the work from which they are quoted 
• must have a clear purpose in your own work 
• may only be a minor part of your own work 
• must be clearly marked with start and end 
• must have a clear indication of source. 

For teaching use

DTU has an agreement with Copydan that states that you may copy 20% of a book, however max. 50 pages, and always 4 pages, per student per 6 months.

For private use

If it is for your own personal use, you may copy an entire book (cf. article 12 in the Danish copyright law), but it is important to remember that you may not share it with others. 

You should also remember that by using books via DTU Findit or by buying them in a bookshop such as Polyteknisk Boghandel, you contribute to ensuring that the authors can continue to write books. 

Yes, it is important that you know whether the research is co-financed research or commissioned research. 

In case of co-financed research, DTU’s results belong to DTU, but as the author you have the entire copyright to the material you publish during the project. However, this principle can be dispensed with, and the collaborators can choose to agree that something else should apply to the rights to the results of the project. 

In case of commissioned research (higher overhead), the collaborator may obtain the right to DTU’s results as well as all written material you have developed. If you want to keep a right of use, it must be agreed upon with the collaborator who “ordered” the research.

When you as an author of an article or a book want to publish it, it is done by means of an agreement with a publisher. Part of this agreement is about which rights you transfer to the publisher (a so-called CTA).

DTU recommends that DTU authors try to keep as many rights as possible and limit the transfer of rights to those necessary for the publishing of a publication, for instance in a specific journal. As a minimum, DTU authors should keep the right to make the publication available via DTU’s research database, DTU Orbit, and as a minimum you should make sure that you can use your article/book in your further work. You should also be aware whether the rights to the data that are part of your article/book are transferred. 

No. Legally, the order of authors does not matter. The copyright exists even in case that an author’s contribution is smaller than that of the other authors, and provided that the contribution complies with the requirement of originality.

There may however be different traditions within different research disciplines, and a distinction must be made between works in which the authors of the individual parts can be identified and common works. 

At DTU, we expect you to follow the Vancouver guidelines when attributing authorships.

No. It is a private matter as the agreement is signed between the publisher and you as the author, and DTU must not provide advice in private matters.

Please feel free to contact the Copyright team and DTU Library if you have general questions about research publishing and copyright.

You should read the conditions regarding your delivery or the grant conditions. In most cases you keep your rights as author, but the authorities or grantors obtain a right of use that can be quite comprehensive and may influence your possibilities to reuse your material.

If you are in doubt, you should contact the copyright team. 

It is important that all rights have been cleared and that it appears clearly both on the main homepage and next to the individual content who is the author as well as the licence that has been used (and may be used). 

It is a good idea to have a contact address on such pages, so that the rights owners can easily contact the owner of the homepage/wiki.

Yes, if the video has been uploaded to YouTube and similar platforms by the person who has the rights.

You must not download the video, but you may embed it or link to it.

There must always be a link to the url where the video can be found. 

It may be allowed to show movies if you show it to people belonging to the close private sphere (i.e., family, friends, and close colleagues and the like). But it is not allowed if the showing of the movie is for everyone (for instance, if everybody can join the event).

Many movie rights can be cleared with Motion Picture Licensing Company Denmark A/S.

Whether you may show a sporting event at Friday Bars or similar events depends on the television channel owning the rights to the event.

As there are different rules depending on which event, organization or service that owns the transmission rights, you must contact the relevant rights owner. The easiest way is often to write directly to the service that shows the event.

DTU’s Copydan agreements do not cover television broadcasts, and DTU has not entered into an agreement about showing of television broadcasts that allows teachers and students to make use of videos from online media in the teaching.

This means that you must make sure that you have permission to show the video and that you indicate the source correctly.

Copyright rules for teaching

You do it by signing an agreement for use in video productions at DTU.

Find the video production agreement

If you are a student, you may, as a rule, not record the teaching, because the recording is considered teaching material belonging to the teacher.

In addition, you may not record your fellow students without their permission. This applies to both sound and video recordings.

If you are a student, you must remember that you as a rule may not record the teaching (and any slides shown), because the teaching material belongs to the teacher.

Copydan agreements do not apply to guest lecturers but cover external teachers.

To put it a little bluntly, a guest lecturer is a guest who is invited to give a lecture or the like in connection with a one-off event.

In the case of a guest lecturer, DTU does not obtain the right of use of the teaching material.

External teachers are teachers who are not employed at DTU but are paid by DTU. DTU therefore obtains a right of use of the external teachers’ teaching materials.

DTU's policy for teaching material (pdf)