Copyright Guide for Staff

Copyright protects the rights of the creators of intellectual property whilst also recognising the legitimate need for others to use this material. It is protected by the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, under which copying is prohibited even for teaching purposes unless:

• Permission is obtained from the copyright owner, or
• It is carried out under the fair dealing provisions of the Act, or
• It is carried out under licence.

A number of significant changes to the 1988 Copyright Designs and Patents Act came into force in June and October 2014. Of particular interest to teaching staff are the changes which affect copying for illustration for instruction. A list of the copyright exceptions can be found at Gov.UK

The university holds the following licences:

• CLA HE licence (Copyright Licensing Agency Higher Educaton Licence)
• The ERA Licence (Educational Recording Agency) 
• NLA Education Establishment Licence

If you need further information on any of these licences, please email library@abertay.ac.uk. 

People often assume that one of the Fair Dealing copyright exceptions will cover then for all activities associated with teaching. This is not the case. The exceptions are extremely limited and activities would be curtailed if the University did not pay for the copyright licences that it holds. Take for example the CLA HE licence. This licence:

• allows multiple copies of a book chapter or journal article to be made for students on a particular module. Fair Dealing does not allow multiple copies to be made.
• allows a chapter to be scanned and a link added to a Leganto reading list. . Scanning of book chapters for students cannot be done under the fair dealing exceptions.Under the terms of our CLA HE licence, scanning can only be carried out by Library staff.

Yes - you can copy copyright works for setting an examination question. Copying material for setting an examination is covered by  the illustration for instruction exception. The amount copied must be fair and usually must include sufficient acknowledgment unless there is a very good reason why you cannot acknowledge the source.

'Fair dealing’ is an exception allowable in UK Copyright Law that allows anyone to copy from copyrighted material. Unlike The CLA HE Licence, the amounts that can be copied are not defined. As there are no are no defined limits of what is fair, each individual must make a judgment and decide whether their copying is fair if they are relying on 'fair dealing' as their defence. Questions that might help you decide whether the use is fair are:

•  Is the amount copied reasonable and appropriate to the context?
•  Have I copied no more than I need to?
•  Does the copying negatively affect sales of the work?
•  Have I acknowledged the work appropriately?

Unless there is a specific reason why you cannot acknowledge the sources, there must always be sufficient acknowledgment of the copyright owner and source of the material if the use is to be considered fair.

Fair dealing is a UK legal term and allows copying of copyright works without permissions. Fair use is the US legal term that allows copying under certain conditions under US Law. Fair dealing will always involve a degree of risk assessment on the part of the person using copyright material.

For teaching the most useful fair dealing exception is S.32. This allows all types of copyright works to be copied for the sole purpose of illustration for instruction. So lecturers can use extracts from films, sound recordings, text, and other artistic works to illustrate a teaching point but the use must be fair - i.e  they must use only what is necessary and the source should be acknowledged unless there is a very good reason why  acknowledgment cannot be given.

There are many sources of information including videos and images on the internet which are created under licences such Creative Commons Licences that allow the content to be re- used and in some cases adapted for re-use. For help on finding material licensed in this way have a look at Newspapers and multimedia guide.

You can also use copyright images for teaching under one of the Fair dealing exceptions , e.g Illustration for instruction or Quotation. To be fair, use only what you need and acknowledge the copyright owner and source of the published material. If using whole images  use a lower resolution of the image than in the published image if at all possible.

The CLA licence also permits 'disembedded' images to be copied from licensed works and used for instructive purposes within a lecture including when the lecture slides are uploaded to My Learning Space. Any surrounding text other than the descriptive caption should be cropped out, otherwise you will need to request a CLA compliant scan using the online request form.

When reusing 3^rd party copyright material you should check if there is a re-use licence associated with the material and check the terms. If there is a reuse licence associated with the material this makes things a lot easier when deciding how you can use the material and any conditions associated with the reuse. 

Many sites containing images, audio, videos, etc',  will let you search for material licenced for re-use in a particular way, e.g Creative Commons licences are a common filter on many sites. For images there are reverse image search engines such as Tin Eye and Google image search. If you have found an image on a site, labelled CC BY but you want to double check the source you can use these search engines to check the  source of the image.

If it is clear the the material has not been made available by the copyright owner or there is some doubt over who posted it, then the general rule of thumb is that you should not use it. Linking to content that you suspect is posted illegally does risk infringing copyright. Try and find an alternative source for the material or use an alternative. If there is no other source and there is no alternative material that you can use, email Library@abertay.ac.uk for advice. 

Teachers and students are able to perform music or drama, play recorded music, or screen a film or TV broadcast, for an educational activity without infringing copyright. But the law does not cover situations or events where non-Abertay students are included, or there is a charge for the tickets, or the performance is recorded.

Abertay has an ERA (Educational Recording Licence). The ERA Licence enables educational establishments to legally make recordings or copies of TV and radio programmes for educational use. Film, programmes, etc., covered by the ERA licence can be recorded and shown via the VLE. Please note one important restriction to the ERA licence. You are not allowed to access ERA copies outside of the UK or make those copies available outside the UK. For more information, email library@abertay.ac.uk  

To show a film or play music at a student society event, open lecture or other extra-curricular activity, you will need to apply for a licence from the appropriate agency. If you require further information, please email library@abertay.ac.uk or contact your academic librarian.

Yes. The CLA HE licence allows Library staff to scan and distribute the material via the Leganto reading lists.

There are limits to the amount that can be scanned under the licence and these are listed below. When scanned extracts are made available via Leganto, library staff carry out all the licensing checks and ensure that all the CLA HE License requirements are met. Our CLA HE licence does not allow teaching staff to scan book chapters or journal articles and add these to Leganto or My Learning Space. 

Limits for scanning under CLA HE licence: 

• One chapter from a book. Please note that due to COVID-19, the extent limit for copying from print books is increased to two chapters or 20%, whichever is the greater. This is a temporary relaxation of the terms of the CLA HE licence, which is in force until 31 July. It applies to books published by participating publishers only and only where a digital edition is not available.
• One article from 1 issue of a journal.
• One whole report of a single case from a volume of judicial proceedings. 
• One short story, poem or play (not exceeding 10 pages in length) from an anthology.
• One whole scene from a play.
• One whole paper from a set of conference proceedings.
• Or, 10% of any of the above whichever is the greater.

In addition the scanned copy must be made from:

• The original book or journal and a copy of this must be held by the University.
• Material which was originally published in the UK or US with the exception of publishers who have not signed up to the licence. 
• Materials supplied from the British Library using their copyright fee paid materials. 

Material that is already available electronically in the Library will not normally be scanned under our CLA licence as you should be able to add a link to the material on your Leganto reading list.

No. Our CLA licence stipulates that the preparation and distribution of digital copies can only be carried out by designated staff. Lecturers are not authorised to scan copyright materials themselves and upload the scanned material to Leganto as the licence does not allow this.

To request a book chapter or journal article to be scanned for adding to your reading list or MyLearningSpace you should use the online request form.

No- for this content you should add the link for the electronic resource  to your Leganto reading list and not upload the actual PDF.

By doing this, not only are you avoiding making any infringing copies but you are also ensuring that the use of the  electronic content is being recorded accurately. This is important because content that is recorded as being well used will not be be highlighted for cancellation when the use of the library's electronic resources and its journal and database  subscriptions are reviewed each year.

If you need help using Leganto, have a look at the Reading List Guide or contact your academic librarian.

Not all published works are covered by the CLA Higher Education Licence. The following categories of works are excluded:

• Printed music (including the words);
• Maps and charts;
• Newspapers;
• Any work on which the copyright owner has expressly and prominently stipulated that it may not be copied under a CLA licence: workbooks, workcards or assignment sheets.

In addition to these excluded categories there are lists of excluded works and specific US titles that are not covered by the CLA licence. The CLA have a developed a useful Check Permissions Tool which can be used to check whether a specific book is covered by the licence.

When you use the scanning service, library staff will check that the material is covered by the licence before scanning it.

Library staff will  process your request as quickly as possible but at busy times of the year you should allow up to 5 working days for your requests to be processed.  However, as canning is outsourced to the British Library, turnaround also depends on how quickly the British Library are able to produce the scan. We have no control over this part of the process.

Yes you can but you must email library@abertay.ac.uk to let library staff know that you want to use the scan in an additional module.

Each reading list will require a different link to the scanned material. Library staff can easily create a new link to the scanned chapter and add this to the new reading list.

When choosing material to digitise for particular modules the scanned material should be provided to enrich the students’ learning experience. It should not be used to create a collection that would cover substantially the same material as a standard textbook and it should not be created to provide students with an alternative to buying a textbook for their course.

If you do this then this would be considered as text book substitution and would not comply with the use of our CLA HE Licence.The CLA Good Practice Guide provides useful advice on how to use the library scanning service to enhance your teaching and avoid textbook substitution.

Provided that the material in your slides is for the purposes of ‘illustration for instruction’, there is no reason that lecture capture technology cannot be used to record a lecture which includes 3rd party copyright material and this content be added to My Learning Space.

Remember to be fair, the work must be sufficiently acknowledged, you must only use only what you need and no more, and it should not adversely affect sales of the copyright material. 

If your recorded lecture is to be made available to a wider audience than just restricted to students on a module then you will need to consider editing out any material which is not your own, unless it has an appropriate licence such as a CC BY or CC BY-NC or you have written permission form the copyright owner to use their content in this way. 

There are many sources of information including videos and images on the internet which are created under licences such Creative Commons Licenses that allow the content to be re- used and in some cases adapted for re-use. You can use the Creative Commons Search to search for free content in the public domain and under Creative Commons licenses.

Pixabay is a useful resource for copyright free images and videos. All contents are released under the Pixabay License, which makes them safe to use without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist - even for commercial purposes. However, best practice is always to acknowledge use of other people's materials. If individual citations with each image are not appropriate, you could always add an acknowledgment stating, for example, that all images are  sourced from Pixabay https://pixabay.com/ and available under the terms of the Pixabay licence, if this was applicable. 

Pixabay is not the only source of copyright free images and information and guidance on finding images is available on the library's Newspapers and multimedia guide.

Information on best practices for crediting images is available from https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/best_practices_for_attribution. Remember,even if you find a CC0 image, it is best practice to provide an attribution.

• A good credit would allow the person reading it to know the source of the material.
• For print materials, these would be similar to the information for referencing. For online materials it would be author, title, URL and licence if known. 
• If using CC0 material a credit is not required but it is always thought best practice to include one.
• Guidance on crediting 3rd party images is available from https://wiki.creativecommons.org/wiki/best_practices_for_attribution For lecture slides, the credit could be underneath each image or, if this was not suitable, the images could be numbered and picture credits given at the end on the last slide.