Copyright essentials

Copyright is important for universities. It protects the intellectual property of researchers, faculty and students, and facilitates legal and ethical sharing of educational resources. This page outlines the essentials of copyright and how you can use copyright material.

More tailored information and support is available through our pages for teaching staff, students and researchers or by contacting us. But read this essential information first.

Understanding copyright

Understanding Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and copyright is essential whenever you are copying or sharing works that are owned or produced by others, for example articles, images, or patented ideas. Adherence to copyright legislation is a University wide responsibility. All members of the University should observe current copyright guidance and legislation.

This guide provides practical advice to help you adhere to the law when using material in copyright as well as understanding how to protect your own copyright. Copyright can be a complex issue. If you can’t find the answer you are looking for in these pages, please get in touch.

What is copyright?

Copyright is a type of intellectual property protection. In the UK, copyright law is governed by the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. This sets out a framework of rules about how you can use a copyright work. Copyright is an automatic right that gives creators the right to control the use of their material and earn a living from it. No formal registration is required so the law protects your work, even when you don’t register it or attach the copyright symbol ©.

Copyright on all works created during your employment, such as financial or administrative documents or course materials, usually rests with the employer. However, where an employee has created scholarly works, copyright belongs to that employee. See Copyright for Researchers for more information.

Licences

Copyright owners who wish to permit certain uses of their work may assign a licence that will allow others to use it according to specific conditions. We subscribe to a range of licences which allow you to carry out certain activities using materials in copyright to support your teaching, learning and research.

We subscribe to the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) Higher Education Licence. This enables you to copy or scan licenced materials for educational purposes. You can:

Make copies from books, magazines, journals, and websites covered by the licence
Share copies with students and staff
Store copies on your intranet
From a book, copy up to one chapter or 10% of the total, whichever is greater
From a journal issue, copy up to two whole articles, or, in some cases, any number of articles – or 10%, whichever is the greater.

Please note that not all publishers are covered by the CLA Licence and some categories of work such as maps and newspapers (covered by the NLA Licence) are excluded entirely. Further information about excluded materials is on the CLA website.

Licence	What does it cover?
CLA Higher Education Licence	Copies and scans up to 10% of a chapter/article from a journal, magazine or book, whichever is greater.
ERA (Educational Recording Agency) Licence	Permits recording of off-air broadcasts.
NLA (Newspaper Licensing Agency) Education Establishment Licence	Permits copying from UK national newspapers.
Creative Commons	Allows open sharing of copyright work under conditions chosen by the copyright owner.

Electronic resources

The Library has licence agreements with publishers that govern access to our electronic resources. They set out how each specific resource can be used and by whom. Conditions of these licences vary considerably. As a rule, if you want to use an electronic journal or book for anything other than reading online or making single copies of a chapter or article for your own personal use, consult the licence terms for that resource. If you are in any doubt, please contact us.

Copyright exceptions

The Copyright, Designs and Patents (CDPA) Act 1988 is the current UK copyright law. This sets out a number of exceptions, in the form of permitted acts. These exceptions enable you to make limited use of copyright works for defined purposes without needing to seek permission of the copyright holder.

Exception	Summary	Potential use	Relevant section in CDPA 1988
Research and private study	Permits individuals to make a single copy or short extract when the use is made for non-commercial research or private study.	Photocopying the chapter of a book as research for a dissertation.	Section 29
Accessible copying	Permits individuals and institutions to create an adapted version or an ‘accessible copy’ of an entire work or part of a work for a disabled user as long as the person has lawful access to the work.	Creating a large print copy of a book for someone with a visual impairment.	Section 31A and 31B
Criticism, review and quotation	Permits individuals to reproduce copyright works for the purpose of quotation, critique and review. The amount used is subject to fair dealing.	Using short extracts or quotations in a dissertation for the purpose of criticism.	Section 30
Illustration for instruction	Allows for all types of copyright work to be copied for the purpose of illustration when teaching. The use must be non-commercial and fair dealing applies so copying must be restricted to a small amount.	Including text, images or other media such as a video snippet in teaching slides or lecture recordings. Adding content to examination papers.	Section 32
Educational performance	Allows you to perform, play or show a work in an educational setting. The audience must be limited to members of the educational establishment and must not include members of the public. Performances shown at film clubs or non-teaching events are not permitted.	Playing a film in a class where the film is relevant to the teaching.	Section 34
Recording of broadcasts	Permits an educational establishment to record TV and radio broadcasts and make them available to their students provided they are used for non-commercial and educational purposes.	This use is covered by the ERA Licence which also provides the University with access to the Box of Broadcasts service.	Section 35

The Intellectual Property Office provides further information about these and other exceptions.

Fair dealing

Certain exceptions usually only apply if the use of the work is fair dealing. Fair dealing is a legal term used to establish if the use of copyrighted material is lawful or infringes copyright. There is no statutory definition of fair dealing. It requires a judgement by the person carrying out the copying. Generally, if the use of the work would not affect sales and the amount copied is reasonable, then the use may be considered fair. The key question to ask is: How would a fair-minded and honest person deal with the work?

Using exceptions means taking a risk management approach because assessing whether a use is “fair” is subjective. This means you might still use a copyright work even if you can’t be certain whether the use is an infringement. You can contact us if you aren’t sure and would like advice.

Free open resources

If use of a resource or image is not covered by one of our licences or a copyright exception, then you should get permission from the rights holder or look for resources that are shared under an open licence. Open licences allow you to reuse work, usually under public domain or a Creative Commons licence. The list below is a selection of sites that you may find useful:

Creative Commons Search – this portal helps you search CC licensed works across multiple platforms
Unsplash – free downloadable images and photos
Pixabay – high quality royalty-free photos
Wikimedia Commons – a collection of images and other media available under a Creative Commons licence or in the Public Domain
Flickr – a community led photo sharing site. You can filter results by Creative Commons licence
OER Commons – a public digital library of open educational resources
Europeana – save and share art, books, films and music

Whenever you share other peoples’ work, whatever the format, it is important that you credit the creator or author and show where you have accessed the material. In the case of online resources, provide a link to the source.

Copyright and Artificial Intelligence

Understanding how Artificial Intelligence (AI) intersects with copyright is important for anyone who creates, utilises or shares copyrighted works. AI, and in particular Generative AI, is transforming various industries, including the creative sector. However, its impact on copyright law is complex and evolving. There are question marks over the copyright status of AI-generated works and whether it is legitimate to use copyrighted works to train AI datasets.

For this reason, we recommend that you exercise caution when using copyright works with AI tools. Always check the copyright status of any materials you are using with AI. Remember that anything entered into an AI tool can potentially be used as training data. Therefore, you should make sure that you own any data or information that you input into an AI training tool or that you seek permissions from the copyright owner.

This is a rapidly changing landscape as ongoing legal and policy discussions will continue to shape future copyright legislation in the age of AI. Further information on how copyright intersects with AI is on our AI for research page. If you have any questions related to copyright and AI, please contact us.