[Tex/LaTex] Acknowledge 3rd party figures using Bibtex copyright key

Question

Usually, in .bib entry for a publication for instance by IEEE, ACM, a field can be added called "copyright" to include copyright information. Then, in the LaTeX document being prepared using book class and BibTeX, if a figure from previously published work is used as it is, how do you make an entry of something like:

Figure XX reproduced with permission from \cite{key}{copyright}?

P.S. I am trying to avoid usage of biblatex package. Is there a quick fix just by using BibTeX?

Answer 1

This is a job for usebib. You can define a new bib field copyright and then you can print the field's content with

\usebibentry{<bib key>}{copyright}

Full example (picture like in moewe's answer).

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@book{appleby,
  author  = {Humphrey Appleby},
  title   = {On the Importance of the Civil Service},
  year    = {1980},
  copyright = {IEEE},
}
\end{filecontents}

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{usebib} % the main one

% the next two are just for the picture
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{duckuments}

% load the bib file
\newbibfield{copyright}
\bibinput{\jobname}

\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
\centering
\includegraphics{example-image-duck}
\caption{A duck}\label{fig:duck}
\end{figure}
Figure~\ref{fig:duck} is \textcopyright\usebibentry{appleby}{copyright}.

\bibliographystyle{plain}
\bibliography{\jobname}

\end{document}

In your document, use the name of the right .bib file instead of \jobname.