Third-Party Material in ACM Works

Introduction

When your ACM work includes material that is not created or owned by you or the other author(s) of the work, you are including "third-party material." You must take care to properly handle this "third-party material" on the rights form you complete, and in the work itself.

This document explains how to work with others' material in your ACM work.

What IS "third-party material"?

Material that you - the authors of your ACM work - create as part of the work is known as "first-party" material. It's yours, you created it, and you own it.

Material that someone else created - not you, and not any of the other authors of your ACM work - is known as "third-party material."

Third-party material is non-textual in nature - e.g., figures, tables, graphs, photographs, simulations, music or audio/video clips. (Small text quotations borrowed from a third party are placed in quotes and cited.)

It is extremely important that you identify the owner, and secure permission to use each and every piece of third-party material (including material in the public domain) that you are using in your ACM work and its presentation, be it an image of an M. C. Escher print, or a ten-second clip from a movie, or background music for your Papers Fast Forward presentation, or a 3D model you have downloaded from the "AIM@SHAPE" web site.

"Securing permission" has a different meaning for certain types of third-party material - in specific, material that is in the public domain, and material that is made available with a Creative Commons ("CC") license.

Please do not assume that, since you found it on the Internet, that it is freely available to use; chances are that it is not.

If you cannot secure permission to use a particular piece of third-party material in your ACM work, you will need to remove it prior to publication and, optionally, replace it with other material that you can use legally. Lack of response on the part of the owner of the material is not to be taken as an implicit approval of your use of that material.

If you are planning to use others' material in your ACM work, please begin the process of securing permission as early as possible. This process may take time to complete, and may cost you money.

Research Datasets and Publication

A growing number of datasets containing images and video retrieved from the Internet and organized in various ways are vital to certain kinds of research. It is important to understand, however, that most of these datasets were built without any regard for the ownership of the original material, and the entities responsible for making the datasets available have no authority to grant you permission to reuse material from these datasets in your ACM work. These datasets are acceptable for research purposes, but not for publication.

As an example, a number of datasets include language similar to this in their “Agreement” section - the “terms of use” of the dataset:

• All videos of the [name] dataset are obtained from the Internet which are not property of our institutions. Our institution are not responsible for the content nor the meaning of these videos.
• You agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, trade, resell or exploit for any commercial purposes, any portion of the videos and any portion of derived data. You agree not to further copy, publish or distribute any portion of the [name] dataset.

The creators of this (and numerous other, similar) dataset built the dataset by collecting material from the Internet, with no provenance. That is, no way for you - the author - to learn who the owner of the material is, and how it was shared online. They don’t own this data - they make that clear - and cannot grant you permission to use it.

There are a few datasets - the FFHQ dataset is one - that do include provenance metadata. You can identify the source and how it was shared online, and these are necessary pieces of information to provide on the rights form, should you wish to use them in your ACM work.

Public Domain Material

Of particular note is material in the "public domain." There are two ways material can be in the “public domain”: 1) The Copyrights has expired or 2) The Copyright owner has put the material in the public domain. To determine if material is in the public domain because the copyright expired, you need to look at the Copyright Law where the material was created. This material is free for anyone to use for any purpose, and permission need not be secured for its use. You do need to identify it as third-party material where it is used in your ACM work, and identify the owner of the work, even if the source states that “...no attribution is required…”

Numerous services - Pixabay, Pexels, and Pixnio, to name three - make available large collections of images that are free to use.

You must declare any reuse of material in the public domain on the ACM rights form.

Wikipedia / WikiMedia Commons

Material found at Wikipedia / WikiMedia Commons cannot be used directly; these are not authoritative sources. The Wikipedia Organization says it themselves, in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_is_not_a_reliable_source. Please do not use Wikipedia / WikiMedia Commons as a source for third-party material in your ACM work.

An author who wishes to use material found at Wikipedia / Wikimedia Commons needs to look for the true source of the material. An example of this follows.

Suppose you would like to use a portrait of Abraham Wakeman on Wikipedia, marked "public domain": https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abram_Wakeman.jpg

If you were to want to use this image in your ACM work, you'd need to cite the true source of this resource (where it was sourced): https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017896041/ - and indeed, there, you can see that it really is in the public domain.

Printing that page to a PDF and delivering it as you complete your ACM Rights Form is proof that this material is in the public domain.

An additional example of why Wikipedia is not an authoritative source.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Whistlers_Mother_high_res.jpg claims that it is in the public domain, but visiting the Musee d’Orsay’s page for this work: https://www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/oeuvres/arrangement-en-gris-et-noir-ndeg1-974 there is no indication that this work is in the public domain. Their site’s “Legal Information” page: https://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/legal-information makes it clear that this particular work is not in the public domain.

Creative Commons-licensed Material

If you are using third-party material released for use with a Creative Commons ("CC") license, please be aware that there are various kinds of Creative Commons licenses; make sure that the licensing details match your intended use of the content. Of particular note are the "NC" or non-commercial licenses; you CAN use material made available with an "NC" Creative Commons license, but you MUST secure permission from the owner of the material. When using any CC-licensed material, attribution to the creator/owner is required, not just the URL where the image can be found.

You must declare any reuse of CC-licensed material on the ACM rights form.

Requesting Permission to Use Others' Material

When requesting permission, make sure you mention the distribution media ACM will use, e.g., print, online, and recordable media. (See Sample Permission Request Letter) If the copyright holder restricts you from use in one of ACM's intended publication media, you may not include the material. An event's organizers or an ACM representative can help answer specific questions about distribution media or quantities.

Be advised that obtaining permission to reuse third-party content may take some time, and you may be asked to pay a licensing fee to the copyright holder; ACM does not cover this for you. Even if the owner of the third-party content does not require permission to use their content - material from the Stanford University 3D Scanning Repository, for example - you must still identify it as third-party content on ACM's copyright form, and acknowledge its use, as defined by the owner, in your paper.

Purchasing an Image for Use In Your ACM Work

One option for using others’ material in your ACM work is to purchase a license to use it, through Getty Images or Shutterstock or similar places. ACM requires certain terms and conditions be met in the license:

• the image needs to be able to be used in a commercial product
• the print and digital use number should be at least 500,000
• there should be no time limit.

Reusing Previously-Published Third-Party Material

If the third-party material was originally published by ACM and is under ACM copyright, you will need to select the "Request Permission" link from ACM Digital Library page for the publication that includes that material, and follow the instructions there to secure permission, using "Re-use in an ACM Publication" as the type of usage.

The administrative fee will be waived with the application of an event-specific discount code that can be obtained from the ACM Publications Department (e-mail to [email protected]).

The automated permissions system will generate a license documenting your reuse of this material in a new ACM publication. You will deliver this license as part of the rights form you complete.

If the third-party material was originally published by IEEE, please visit this link - https://www.ieee.org/publications/rights/reqperm.html - to learn how to request permission from IEEE to reuse the material.

If the third-party material was originally published by Elsevier, please visit this link - https://www.elsevier.com/about/policies/copyright/permissions - to learn how to request permission from Elsevier to reuse the material.

If the third-party content was originally published by Eurographics, please send an e-mail to [email protected] to request permission to reuse.

Please remember: you must provide us with documentation of the owner’s permission that you have received to use each piece of third-party material when you deliver your rights form, and you must identify the owner of each piece of third-party material in your work. For any photograph, figure, graphic image of any kind, the owner must be identified in the caption. ACM cannot grant permission for re-use of material on which it does not hold copyright and therefore must be able to identify that owner. If you cannot obtain permission to use a particular piece of third-party material, it must be removed before final submission.

"Fair Use" and Third-Party Material

ACM offers Fair Use guidelines at http://www.acm.org/publications/guidance-for-authors-on-fair-use.

The ACM Rights Form and Third-Party Material

When you complete your ACM rights form, you are asked to identify each piece of third-party material you are using in your work or in its presentation.

For each piece of third-party material, there are six questions to be answered:

1. "ACM citation reference" is the place in your work where the material is used. "Figure 2a" and "supplemental video" and "Papers Fast Forward presentation" are all acceptable types of answers.
2. "Original Third-party source" is where the third-party material was published or found. For an online resource, provide the URL for the material, and be specific
3. "Approved By" is the entity that approved the reuse of this material. If the material is CC-licensed or in the public domain, you can put "CC-licensed" or "public domain" here. Claims of "fair use" may be made here, though "fair use" mostly applies to formal reviews and teaching, not to republication. Fair use claims will be evaluated by ACM staff prior to publication. If you are claiming your use of third-party material is covered under the Fair Use Doctrine in the country the material was created, you must upload a paper stating why you believe your use is covered under the Fair Use Doctrine. Not all countries have a Fair Use Doctrine. Some countries have Fair Dealing Doctinre, for example the United Kingdom, which is much more restrict then the United States Fair Use Doctrine. The Copyright Laws where the material was created governs whether the Fair Use or the Fair Dealing Doctrine applies.
4. "Image Credits" is the text you will add to the caption of the figure in your work for this third-party material.
5. "Date Approved" is the date that the material was approved for use. Use the current date if no approval was necessary (public domain or CC-licensed material, for example).
6. You must attach a PDF or text file that demonstrates the proof of your ability to reuse this material. If you secured permission from the owner of material via e-mail, a PDF of the e-mail you received is sufficient. Printing the web page that shows that the material you wish to use is appropriately CC-licensed, or in the public domain, is sufficient. If you secured permission to reuse a previously-published ACM work, the license provided to you can be attached.

If you have a large amount of third-party material to identify, it is acceptable to deliver a separate file or files containing the relevant documentation.

For example, if one wanted to use this image of New York Rep. Abram Wakeman in their ACM work, the third-party material could be documented on the rights form in this manner:

• "ACM Citation Reference" is "Figure 3."
• "Original Third-party source" is https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017896041/.
• "Approved by" is "Public domain."
• "Image Credits" is "Rep. Abram Wakeman of New York, photograph by Mathew Brady [Public Domain], via US Library of Congress. (https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017896041/)."
• "Date Approved" can be today's date.
• The "proof of permission" document could be a print-to-PDF of the Library of Congress page - https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017896041/.

Attributing Third-Party Material in Your ACM Work

When you use third-party material in your ACM work, you need to clearly identify each piece of material in the caption of the figure where it occurs in your work (and not in the Acknowledgments section, or in a separate "Image Credits" section). The author of each piece of third-party material must be identified, as well as the manner in which the material is made available - is it in the public domain, is it CC-licensed, did the owner grant permission for you to reuse it, etc. Adding a URL (direct, or shortened) helps the reader to more quickly locate the source material, and is a welcome addition.

ACM requires this identification so that anyone seeking re-use rights will know whom to contact and so that ACM will not mistakenly grant any re-use rights to third-party material.

Here are a few examples of attributions for various types of third-party material:

• "Sailboat image courtesy David Jones."
• "Roses image © David Smith." (Use the copyright symbol, not "(c).")
• "Antique truck via Flickr user Vanya17 (CC-BY)."
• "Rep. Abram Wakeman of New York, photograph by Mathew Brady [Public Domain], via US Library of Congress. (https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017896041/)."

Online resources can be identified with a URL that points the reader to the resource.

If you have received permission to use third-party material in your Work, and the permission contains a specific credit line you must use the credit line provided as that is part of the permission you have been granted.

Feedback and Questions

If you have questions regarding this document or about how to appropriately work with third-party material, please contact ACM staff at [email protected].

Example 1

Using a photograph of Elaine Chao in your ACM work.

Full URL:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/52150804237/in/photolist-2nsovcc-2nstHvb-2nsouA7-2nsuUk1-2nstDaT-2nsouKW-2nstF9R-2nswcRN-2nsov34-2nstFdi-2nswcGQ-2nswcsg-2nsuUpK-2nstFo3-2nstFDP-2nsouFY-2nstGZg-2nsuTSc-2nsuUAb-2nsovaP-2nsoutZ-2nswcLT-2nsouUP-2nsuTUw-2nswcvh-2nstHB3

Shortened URL:

http://tiny.cc/qgtl001

Note that, on the page where the photograph is found, the following directive: “Please attribute to Gage Skidmore if used elsewhere.” This means that you need to include that in the caption of the figure in your ACM work where you use this third-party material.

On the ACM Rights Form, you will want to do the following:

• Include the URL (preferably the “Full URL” but maybe the “Shortened URL”) as the location where the image can be found.
• Identify where, in your ACM work, the third-party material can be found - “Figure 7.”
• Print that page to a PDF and attach it to the rights form.
• State that the image is made available with a “CC BY-SA 2.0 Creative Commons license.”