It depends. STM signatory publishers fall under 2 categories: STM Opt-Out (Notification Not Required) and STM Not Opt-Out (Notification Required). A formal permission is not required for the publishers who fall under STM Opt-Out category and a formal permission is required for the publishers who fall under STM Not Opt-Out category.

However, we need to track carefully how much total material we are re‐using from the borrowed‐from STM publisher (inclusive of both STM Opt-Out and Not Opt-Out publishers) to ensure that we do not exceed the STM limits—most notably, “no more than three figures from works published by a single publisher for a book chapter” and “in total not more than thirty figures from a single publisher for republication in a book.”

For more information on the STM gratis limit and guidelines, please refer: https://www.stm-assoc.org/2022_01_27_STM_Permission_Guidelines_2022.pdf

For publishers who are under STM, please refer to the link: https://www.stm-assoc.org/intellectual-property/permissions/permissions-guidelines/

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