Author rights and open licensing
For every article published by Technical Report Journals (TRJ), copyright remains with the author(s). TRJ publishes articles as open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license (unless a journal states otherwise).
Under CC BY 4.0, anyone may read, download, share, and reuse the work, including for commercial purposes, provided that:
the author(s) and original source are properly credited,
a link to the license is included, and
any changes are clearly indicated.
This approach maximizes visibility and reusability while ensuring that authors receive clear attribution for their work.
Alternative licenses (exceptional cases)
In rare situations, a different license may be required (for example, due to funder, institutional, or legal restrictions). If you have such requirements, you must inform the editorial office at the time of submission. Any exception is considered case-by-case and is granted only with TRJ’s approval before publication.
Using Material Published Elsewhere (Permissions)
Your responsibility to obtain permissions
Authors must secure permission to reuse any third-party copyrighted material that is not in the public domain and is not already available under a compatible open license. This includes content from other publishers as well as your own previously published work if you transferred copyright or did not retain reuse rights.
TRJ cannot publish copyrighted third-party material without proper permission or a clearly valid license.
Permission is typically required for
your previously published content where you do not hold copyright or reuse rights,
large portions of text from any source,
tables, figures, diagrams, charts, illustrations, or artworks that are reused as-is or only lightly modified,
photographs or images where you are not the copyright holder,
materials reproduced from books, journals, websites, or commercial sources that are not under a suitable license.
Permission is typically not required for
newly created tables or summaries built from published data, as long as the original data source is properly cited (e.g., “Data from …” or “Adapted from …”),
brief quotations used for scholarly purposes (where lawful), with appropriate citation,
figures/diagrams that are fully redrawn and substantially transformed by the authors (still cite the source of the idea or data).
Note: Rules about quotation and “fair use/fair dealing” depend on the country and context. When unsure, obtain permission or use openly licensed material.
How to obtain permission (recommended steps)
To avoid delays, request permissions early—ideally before you submit or while the manuscript is under review. If you are uncertain whether permission is needed, it is safest to request it.
Identify the rights holder (often the original publisher; check the original publication’s imprint or rights page).
Request written permission covering online open access publication under CC BY 4.0 (or confirm the material is already under a compatible license).
Keep copies of permission emails/letters and provide them to TRJ if requested.
Acknowledgement format (captions)
If the rights holder specifies a required acknowledgement, follow those instructions. Otherwise, use a clear caption credit such as:
“Reproduced with permission from [Author/Source], [Title], [Publisher], [Year].”
or, when applicable:
“Adapted from [Author/Source], [Title], [Publisher], [Year], with permission.”