I have students who have:

1. taken a picture of a table / chart from an outside source and pasted the picture into their academic work and listed the source.

2. copy/pasted a table from a source into an academic work and listed the source of the table.

Is this OK, or do the students need to manually reconstruct a table from an outside source?

Answer, edited 9.8.2019:

Thank you for your question.

It’s always good to be careful with respecting copyrights. Especially the use of photographs might cause problems. I would not use the photographs of distinguished nature photographers, for example, without their permission.

See also Copyright Act 404/1961 (last amendment 12.11.2018), especially 22 § and 25 §.

Scientific presentation

9.8.2019: Copyright organisation Kopiosto says that in Finland:

Photographs can be cited in scientific presentations (e.g. theses) or critiques (e.g. critique of a thesis in a journal) if the photo in question is connected to the text and the citation is justified on the grounds of illustrating or clarifying the presentation. – – Whenever a work is quoted, the source of the quotation, which normally includes the author’s name and quoted work, must be mentioned.

Teaching purposes and online courses

JAMK has a digital licence for these kind of situations.

According to copyright society Kopiosto: “The staff and students of educational institutions can scan printed publications and copy text and images from open websites. The licence applies to both domestic and foreign materials. These materials can be used in education, research, diploma theses and practical works.”

Further information on these websites: