This guidance is provided to help students understand the copyright issues involved in using material for their studies and course work when the copyright material is owned by others (often referred to as 3rd party copyright party material).  Support for copying or adapting works for students who have a disability is available from the Advisory Team and guidance covering the University’s Intellectual Property Policy is also available.  

Students regularly use copyrighted material such as books, music, films and other works in the course of their studies. These can be resources they have purchased, borrowed from the Library or found online. Copyright law aims to strike a balance between the rights of the copyright owner to control how their work is used and the rights of re-use. It does this by providing copyright exceptions and licences that allow 3rd party copyright material to be used without infringing copyright.

UK Copyright Exceptions

The most important Copyright exceptions that covers use of 3rd party copyright material for students in UK law are  s.29 Research and private study  and s.30 Criticism, review, quotation and news reporting. These exceptions will usually cover copying  text, images, sound and video recordings and will allow you, for example, to quote some text from a book or include screenshots of a film in an assignment. 

The amount that can be copied using a UK Copyright exception is limited by 'fair dealing' and the copied works must be sufficiently acknowledged. The amount which may be copied is not specified in law and often people will use the limits allowed by the CLA Higher education Licence as a rule of thumb as to how much can be copied. However, 'fair dealing' usage could be more or less than these limits. It is up to the person copying to decide if the use is fair. To help you decide whether the use is fair, you should consider the following questions.

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

Licences

The University also holds licences that allow students to use some copyright material. For example, the resources provided by the library includes books, journals, databases and software many of which are available as electronic resources (e-resources). These resources are protected by copyright but the University pays for licences for this content that allow students to access and download this content for their personal use. However, these licences do not allow Abertay students to share the this content online with others. 

In addition to the licenced e-resources, the University also holds  some collective or blanket licences that allow students to copy copyright licenced material within set limits. For example, the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) Higher Education (HE) licence covers the majority of published books and journal articles. This licence allows students to copy up to 10% or a chapter/article from a qualifying book or journal, whichever is the greater. This licence does not not allow Abertay students to share or post the content online . The terms of use of the CLA HE Licence including limits on how much can be copied under the terms of the licence are displayed beside all university copiers and printers.  

Postgraduate research students should also refer to the Copyright for Research support pages.

FAQs

What is copyright and what does it protect?
How long does copyright protection last?
What is fair dealing?
What are Creative Commons licences and how do they work?
Where can I find images and videos that I can use outwith the normal copyright restrictions?
Can I include copyright material in my coursework?
I am making a video for my course work. What copyright issues do I need to consider?
Some common copyright myths

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