The information provided within this guide explains how to ensure compliance with UK copyright law and licensing agreements.
This guide will explain why we all need to abide by copyright law and how you can make content on reading lists copyright compliant.
Information contained within these pages is intended as a general guideline, and an interpretation of current copyright issues. It is not intended, and should not be construed, as legal advice.
Please note that, while Library, Learning Resources and Information (LLRI) staff are happy to advise on copyright issues and to assist in obtaining copyright-cleared items through our digitisation and document supply services, it is the responsibility of individual academic staff to ensure that their use of materials for learning and teaching complies with UK copyright law and the terms of our licences.
Most work that is created in colleges and universities, including teaching and learning materials, will be protected by copyright law. So, for example, where a lecturer creates an online learning unit that includes materials that they have authored themselves, the works in the module will be protected (though note that academic staff may not always hold the copyright in their own published work).
Copyright law applies to all kinds of materials, both hard copy and electronic, including images, film and sound files.
Third party materials (content other than your own) are generally copied and/or reused in educational settings under education exceptions and licences.
You must not reuse, scan or copy the whole or part of any such material, or save and store it in an online environment, including BREO, in any format, without obtaining agreement from the copyright holder.
The exception is unless its reuse falls under one of the copyright exceptions, or 'fair dealing' limits, or under the terms of one of our licences.
You need to ensure that you follow the law, as otherwise both you and the University could be at risk of prosecution.
Copyright law in the UK is governed by Part I of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA, the Act). It has been subject to various amendments over time including revisions recognising the digital age in 2003, and with a recognition of creative industry and education in 2014.
Copyright is a legally enforceable property right that makes it possible for the holder of that right to profit from a work such as a book, for example. It does this by preventing others from exploiting the work without the rightsholder’s say so for a period of time.
Copyright protects the expression of ideas but not the idea itself. For a work to gain copyright protection it has to be original and should be expressed in a fixed form - for example, in writing (whether in print or electronic). Research data, teaching materials, lecture notes may all be works which attract copyright protection. Copyright becomes effective at the time of the creation of the work. It arises automatically - in the UK no registration of the copyright in a work is required in order to protect it.
As well as copyright, authors also have 'moral rights':
But it has to be done legally, following copyright law, seeking the rightsholders permission, abiding by what they say you can or can’t do with their content.
Any of the following situations may come under the 'fair dealing' clause:
Fair dealing is not a right, but a legal defence to infringing copyright. 'Private study' is undefined but is intended to exclude copying for group or class study.
There is no precise definition in law but it essentially allows limited copying, provided it is ‘fair’.
Before making copies under fair dealing, you should check:
If the answer is "yes" to any of these questions, fair dealing is unlikely to apply to the intended copying.
There are no defined limits, but the amount that may be copied is usually accepted to be:
for the purposes of reporting current events, anyone may copy from a work (but not photographs), providing sufficient acknowledgement of the source is given.