I made some comments about how to get permission to use material from journals. I will leave here an example of how to do this for Elsevier journals:
- http://www.elsevier.com/authors/author-rights-and-responsibilities#rights
This website shows what the authors of the paper can use of their own published paper. Usually the coprights are tranfered to the journal.
- http://www.elsevier.com/authors/obtaining-permission-to-re-use-elsevier-material
This page explains how to get autorization to use other peoples work (part of it) in your thesis/paper.
Regards,
Pedro.