This guide provides you with the information you need to know about copyright, and how you can use copyright protected materials legally under the license for Higher Education.  The guide is supplemental to, and does not replace legal advice. If you have questions not answered in this guide please use these contacts:

• General copyright issues, and license queries, contact the Copyright Officer, telephone 01334 462776
• Enquiries for resources you require to be scanned for use on MMS contact your Academic Liaison Librarian
• Open Access enquires, contact the Open Access Team.  More information on Open Access can be found on the Open Access Libguide

Copyright ensures that those who create works are given economic and moral rights in how they can be used.  Copyright automatically applies to original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works in the form of published editions, sound recordings, films and broadcasts.

In the UK copyright is established in law through the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 (as amended).  It is intended to ensure that those who create works are economically rewarded for the effort required to create their work, and to encourage future creativity and the development of new works.  In order to make use of copyright protected material, permission needs to be sought from the copyright holder before making use of a work.

The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) acts on behalf on owners of licensed materials in the UK, and provides licenses, including the CLA Higher Education License, which allows for selected use of copyright protected materials in Higher Education in the UK. This ensures that you don't have to seek permission each time you want to use copyright protected works.

Who Owns Copyright?

Copyright automatically applies to original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works in the form of published editions, sound recordings, films and broadcasts.  As an automatic right, there is no register to check who owns the copyright on a work.

The original owner of copyright is the person(s) who created the work, except in a case where a work is created in the course of employment, in which case the employer owns the copyright, unless agreed otherwise.  Works created by a Government Department belong to the Crown.

As copyright is considered property, it can be transferred, bought, sold, exchanged or inherited, in part or in it's entirety.

The copyright holder may be:

• The original creator(s) of the work
• The heir(s) of the original creator(s)
• The creator(s) employer(s)
• anyone to whom the rights have been transferred, e.g. publisher, broadcaster, etc
• a licensing society which has been asked asked to collect fees on behalf of the rights holder.

In most cases, copyright lasts for the duration of the creator's life, plus seventy years.

Some changes to Copyright Law in the UK are expected to be implemented in June 2014.  These changes will extend the "exceptions" to copyright and are intended  to make copyright more appropiate for the digital environment.   The changes are likely to affect the way in which copyright protected materials can be used, allowing third parties to make use of copyright materials for some economically or socially advantageous reasons, without requiring permission from the copyright owner.  The concept of "Fair Dealing" will still apply.

The Intellectual Property Office website contains information about the proposed changes.  They have produced a series of guides, which includes:

• Exceptions to copyright: Research
• Exceptions to copyright: Education and Teaching

The CLA Higher Education Licence is available to view on the CLA Website.  A new licence agreement is signed every year, and covers the use of copyright materials for use in Higher Education, for non-commercial purposes.

This short video Copyright and Creativity from  the Copyright User website is created by Bartolomeo Meletti and made available under a Creative Commons license.

Paper copies

The University has a Higher Education License, supplied by The Copyright Licensing Agency.  Under the license you are permitted to:

• Make multiple paper copies for distribution to a class
• Make paper copies of 1 chapter or up to 5% of a book
• Make paper copies of 1 article from an issue of a journal, periodical or conference proceeding
• Make paper copies of 1 short story or poem not exceeding 10 pages in length from an anthology
• Make paper copies of 1 case from published reports of judicial proceedings

In order to be copied under the license you need to check:

• The University Library owns a copy of the work, or has obtained a copyright fee paid copy
• You are using the most recent edition of the work you are copying from.  Copies can be taken from previous editions,however you will need to be able to demonstrate a clear pedagogical reason for doing so
• The work you are copying from is not an excluded work.  You can check if the work you would like to copy from is included or excluded from the license using the CLA Title Search tool.

Digital Copies for your modules

Single chapters/articles from printed works can be scanned and made available via your module's Online Reading List (subject to restrictions). Email ReadingLists or contact your Academic Liaison Librarian.

Adding digital versions of copyright protected works, e.g. PDFs of journal articles, to a module yourself is a breach of the Higher Education License.

The Library can also check if  online editions of the works you want to use are available.

Categories of excluded works:

The following categories may not be copied under the Higher Education License:

• Printed music (including the words)
• maps and charts
• newspapers
• workbooks, workcards and assignment sheets
• any work where the copyright holder has expressly and prominently stipulated it may not be copied under a CLA license
• certain works excluded from the License, use the CLA Title Search Tool to check if the work you want to use is excluded

Whilst these works are excluded, please remember that the library has access to many of these resources via online databases, etc.  Please contact your Academic Liaison Librarian if you need more information. 

It may be possible to reproduce copyright materials under the "Fair Dealing" exemption.  There is no definitive description of what "Fair Dealing" is, but the UK courts have tended to focus on the economic impact on the copyright owner has been - ie has the use of material under "Fair Dealing" exceeded what may reasonable be considered as "Fair" and resulted in economic loss for the copyright owner.

Within the scope of "Fair Dealing" it may be possible to copy short extracts from a work for:

• private study
• non-commercial research
• criticism or review
• reporting of current events

Before deciding that you can copy under the "Fair Dealing" provision, you would also need to demonstrate that your reasons are geniune and fair.

Further information can be found on the Intellectual Property Office website.