Copyright
A vital element of
education is the ability to have access to -- and adapt -- other
people's work. In order to learn how to read, assess, edit, present,
re-compile, formulate, gather information, and articulate our own
experiences into our work we often need to copy, download, quote or take
extracts from other people's original work.
Copyright grants, temporarily, the absolute right to creators of works
to control the copying, re-use and dissemination to the public of their
original works.
If you're using work that was made by someone else, chances are that work is copyright
protected. What you're allowed to do with copyrighted works depends
largely on the purpose for which you're using them.
If you can't find what you're looking for, contact your local campus library for further guidance.
This guide to copyright is organised into these sections, alternatively try the ctrl+F shortcut to find your keyword:
Legal background and related guidance
The information that follows sets out the basics of copyright within the
University of Brighton environment. The legislation governing copyright
(UK and EU) and the agreement with the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA)
is available online.
Related university guidance and regulations
Organisations that help you understand copyright
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Ownership
Staff and students
The University Intellectual Property (IP) Policy
applies
to the Intellectual Property of all its employees and students, and further guidance for students is in the Student Handbook.
Other people's works
Copyright is one part of a bundle of IP rights alongside patents; trade
marks; design rights.
Copyright does not need to be registered or confirmed with a copyright
symbol © as it automatically exists when original expressions of ideas
are recorded in text,
art, performance, sound recording/music, film, broadcast and
typographical layout. In music, copyright applies to the composition,
musical score and
lyrics, as well as any artwork or cover designs. Copyright also applies
to the public performance of music.
Copyright applies equally to both paper and digital publications, so all
material on the Internet is also covered by copyright and not free to
use unless specified.
The
first owner of copyright is the individual who creates the work, unless
it was created by an employee in the course of employment in which case
the employer automatically owns the work. The UofB's Intellectual Property (IP) Policy clarifies the University's position on ownership of employee and student work.
Copyright can be assigned in
writing, such as when a photographer signs a contract with a publisher
or a production company signs a contract with a film distributor. Always
check the terms of a contract carefully to make sure that you do not
unknowingly sign away all of your rights to your work, as you may later
wish to publish it to the Web or place it in a digital repository.
Rights of the copyright owner
Under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, a copyright owner has the right to:
- perform, show or play the work in public (performance right)
- communicate the work to the public (e.g. by putting it online)
- make an adaptation of the work (derivative work)
- copy the work (reproduction right)
- issue copies of work to the public (distribution right)
- rent or lend the work to the public (rental right)
- authorise others to undertake any of these activities
Moral rights and performers' rights also reside in copyright works. The moral
right is the right of the creator to be named as the author/creator of the work
(right of attribution) as well as the right to object to derogatory treatment of their
work. Performers' rights are more limited but still afford the
performers control over their live performance.
Carrying out any of these acts without the copyright holder's permission is an
infringement of their copyright. However, there are circumstances where
you can carry out these acts without direct permission.
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Use other people's work
You can use copyrighted work only under one of these circumstances:
Blanket licences from Reproduction Rights Organisations
The University of Brighton
holds licences allowing staff and students to share most course materials
which would otherwise require permission from copyright holders. Our guide to sharing materials explains in greater detail what can and can't be done under these licences.
- CLA Basic
- For photocopying and scanning texts to distribute as course
materials for university courses, including distance learning and
non-credit-bearing courses.
- ERA+
- From the Educational Recording Agency which permits off-air
recording of radio and TV broadcasts for educational purposes, these may
be played in a lecture or as online course materials anywhere in the UK.
- NLA - Newspaper Licensing Agency allows students and staff to copy licenced newspapers' articles for class, research, and other internal purposes.
- PRS - For the performance of live music on University premises
(restricted to Sallis Benney theatre)
- PPL
- For the playing and performance of commercial music
(restricted to designated areas within the University - Stokers Bar
(Eastbourne); Westlain Bar (Falmer); Varley Halls of Residence;
Cockcroft Mezz Restaurant)
However,
there are also some defenses for the use of copyright protected work
which allow you to use and share work without the need to seek
permission or
purchase a licence.
Defenses for use under Fair Dealing
Copyright law provides some exceptions (also known as permissions or
defenses) which allow individuals to reproduce reasonable amounts of
copyright material without permission and without prejudicing the
commercial interests of the copyright holder. Here are the main features
of the following exceptions:
In
teaching: Even without licences under Fair Dealing you may:
- copy work by hand in the course of instruction (e.g.
writing on a whiteboard) as long as
acknowledgement is given
- perform, show or play recorded music, television programmes and
other works to an audience made up of only lecturers and students and
that the purpose
is instruction or 'in the course of activities of the institution'
- Teachers and students on courses which teach film production may
copy a film or film soundtrack for instructional purposes; copying must
be done by the person giving or receiving instruction; the film/video
can't be shown outside the edit suite
To photocopy, scan, or distribute materials on paper or online follow the detailed guidance on how to share materials as Fair Dealing does not provide permission for those acts.
In
examinations: You may reproduce images, quotations, passages of text and so
on with sufficient acknowledgement for the purposes of setting exam
questions.
In criticism and review: The use must be 'fair,' which is
based on factors such as the amount taken, the motive for use and the
consequences of using the work. This concession can be useful not only
for quoting literary works in essays but also for quoting from TV, films
or music – for example, Channel 4 successfully used the defense of
‘criticism or review’ when taken to court for breach of copyright in a
programme full of extracts from the film A Clockwork Orange.
In
non-commercial research or private study (provided the work is not a
broadcast, sound recording or film): This use must be 'fair', similar to the use for criticism and review.
The 'fair dealing' exception in the Copyright Designs and Patents Act
1988 permits the making of a single photocopy by or for an individual
for the purposes of non-commercial research or private study, criticism
or review, or for reporting of current events. Copying for commercial
purposes is only allowed if the copyright owner's consent is obtained,
or a copyright fee is paid, or it is made under licence.
News Reporting Fair dealing for reporting current events is
allowed for any type of copyright work, apart from photographs (to protect
newspapers from misuse by competitors).
Incidental inclusion Copyright is not infringed by its incidental
inclusion in an artistic work, sound recording, film (or video), or
broadcast. For example, a photograph may accidentally include a work of
art in the background. The work copied incidentally must not be the
subject or essential to the work in which it is contained. And note that
the Act stipulates that a musical work, words spoken or sung with
music, ‘shall not be regarded as incidentally included in another work
if it is deliberately included’.
Visually impaired persons Consult this guide to photocopying for patrons with visually impairments
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Copyright duration
Copyright runs for a pre-determined length of time after which the work
is available for other people to copy and use without formal clearance,
in Europe this is referred to as being 'out of term' in the US it's
referred to as being in the public domain.
As a general rule, copyright in literary, dramatic, artistic and musical
works (composition) lasts for 70 years following the death of the
author/composer/artist.
There are some exceptions to this, notably unpublished works, works of unknown authorship and works in Crown and
Parliamentary copyright.
Copyright in film lasts for 70 years after death of the last of four
contributors. Key contributors are the writer of the script, the
designer, the composer and the director.
Copyright in sound recordings and broadcasts lasts for 50 years after
the date of recording or broadcast; there is no copyright on radio or
television broadcasts which were aired before 1 July 1957. Duration for
sound recordings and performers' rights will increase from 50 to 70
years from 2014 as these terms have been extended.
Copyright in typographical layout expires 25 years after it was first published.
Anyone who wants to use work that is out of term has to get hold of the
original materials, as a re-release of a CD of a 1940 performance would
be regarded as a 'new' recording. Repeating a broadcast, however,
doesn't extend its copyright.
Diagram which illustrates copyright duration (link takes you to the JISC website)
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Share course materials
A range of distribution tools are available such as Aspire for digitised reading lists; the Reprographics service for paper course packs; six campus Libraries; and the Online Library for full-text journals and e-books.
Paper course packs
Course readings are a selection of different materials which support the teaching of a specific module.
Course packs are useful for:
-
cohorts of students required to read lots of readily identifiable chapters and articles
-
distance and part-time students who cannot easily gain access to a Library
The Reprographics service will print your paper course packs. The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) has published a Good Practice Guide in the Creation of Course Packs [PDF]
on their website. This document provides examples of good and bad
practice, and contains useful guidance notes for creating course packs.
Digital course packs
The libraries will provide you the .pdf version of many of your course readings for distribution via your Aspire reading lists, or you can scan the materials yourself provided you follow these instructions .
We are restricted to the amount of a book or journal we can scan or photocopy per module, generally it's:
- one complete chapter of a book
- one whole article in an issue of a periodical or set of conference proceedings
- one short story or poem not exceeding 10 pages from any one anthology
- one report of a case per set of judicial proceedings
- 5% of the work when 5% is greater than one of the conditions above: 1/chapter; 1/story; 1/poem; 1/article; 1 report
- In the case of paper photocopies, the number of multiple copies must not exceed the number needed to
ensure that each student registered on that module and each lecturer
teaching on it have one copy each.
The CLA also requires us to make digital copies of the most recent edition available at the time of scanning, if an older edition is required this must be for pedagogic purposes.
How to manage your course readings
Provided you do the following, it's acceptable to continue to link to readings from your modules' Aspire lists for subsequent iterations of your module if:
- The module code is the same. If it changes you must notify your campus library to tell them that the scanned readings for the module need to be associated with the updated code and title.
- If you want to link to the material from other modules, you must notify your campus library .
- You delete all links to, or copies of, scanned readings from modules which aren't currently being taught.
Your must tell the library if:
- Your module will no longer be taught
- You no longer include a reading in your syllabus
Use 'already digital' text and media as course materials
Wherever it's located online -- for example in a blog, wiki, email, on a
web page, news site, and so on -- text belongs to its associated creator or institution.
Text from online sources
If you want to copy text from the Internet ('copy and paste', print off,
download & upload) as part of your teaching materials for
distribution to your students, check the:
-
Copyright statement - There is usually a clickable link that will say
'copyright' or 'terms and conditions' or 'terms of use' and will tell
you what you are permitted to do with the content. Some licence
agreements (such as for Wikipedia or Creative Commons) allow you to copy
the content as long as you reference it correctly.
- Database - If it's from a database or e-resource that the UofB
subscribes to, then check its terms and conditions to see if you can
print material off from the database and copy it for students (sometimes
you can); link to the articles/images directly from your Aspire list rather than downloading it and uploading it into the VLE, this guide to deep linking will show you how to do this [PDF].
- Legality - Some online material may still be in copyright, such as
works by Sylvia Plath or James Joyce. If so, don't copy these, as doing
so could have serious consequences, both for you and for the University.
- Owners of content - Sometimes content owners will agree to let you
take text verbatim or to summarise from their work; for example, this guide to copyright
has drawn passages from other sites about best practice copyright
guidance, and the owners of that content gave me permission to do this.
If you are in any doubt about whether you can use text found online in
your teaching materials, you can either link directly to the page
(although there are some sites which do not permit this type of linking
such as Harvard Business Review) or link directly to the homepage of the
site; or contact your local campus library for help.
You may be able to use short excerpts of text in your materials as long
as you are using them for criticism or review. This comes under the fair dealing exception within copyright law.
Be careful, though, as fair dealing is subjective. News reporting
sites, for example, are very protective of their content and even
copying a few words may be seen as an infringement of copyright.
Share articles from newspapers
We have taken an NLA
(Newspaper Licensing Agency) licence, which allows us to make
photocopies, print from national and regional newspaper websites, project onto a classroom
screen, and to fax cuttings taken from newspapers for distribution to
staff and students.
If copying onto paper, must limit to 250 copies. If copying from website and saving a .pdf into studentcentral to distribute via Aspire (you can't save it on a publicly accessible website) you must delete the .pdf after 28 days. You can deep link directly to newspaper articles as well.
This covers all UK national newspapers, the Argus, Eastbourne Herald,
Hailsham Gazette, Sussex Express and other selected titles.The licence
does not include the Financial Times to be received or copied
electronically.
Each copy should carry the following notice: NLA licensed copy. No further copies may be made except under licence
Images
Link from your Aspire list
to individual or curated sets of images within subscription e-resources
such as ArtStore or Bridgman, both of which can be found in the Online Library's A-Z List. Instructions on how to make a persistent link are in this guide to deep linking [PDF]. Please email
your library if you have any questions about this process.
Images on the Internet are the property of their creators or the
people/organisations who have purchased the rights to them. In terms of
photographs, it is always the photographer who owns the copyright in the
first instance. You should never click and save pictures from the
Internet with the intent to re-use them in your own content without
permission to use them. Never copy logos without permission, as they will likely contain
additional rights such as trademark and design.
Permission is granted either by licence, in
writing from the copyright holder or by paying to use the image.
Image licences range from open licences, such as the Creative Commons
Attribution licence, to restricted access images containing watermarks.
Never remove watermarks -- you must pay for watermarked images if you
want to use clean versions of them. High quality high resolution images
will always come with a price.
Finding 'free' digital images: There is an excellent interactive tutorial on image searching
from JISC Digital Media which teaches you how to find useful sites and
learn how to search for images that you can use freely on your websites
as well as in your teaching materials.
Films, television, and on-demand broadcasts
The UofB's subscription to the e-resource BoB National means you have access to formerly broadcast radio and television for use in learning both on- and off-campus long term. Our BoB guidance will teach you how to link directly to programmes in BoB from your Aspire list.
Video available online courtesy of sites
such as YouTube and iTunes will have their own terms and conditions which will usually prevent
you from downloading and re-uploading video content, but you will be
able to link to legal content from your Aspire
lists or embed it for streaming within your presentation or module
area.
Do not upload anything that you think is infringing content, for
example commercial films, as this could have serious consequences for
both you and the University. If in doubt, ask or check with your campus library.
On-Demand services such as the BBC iPlayer and Channel 4's 4oD service
can be used for educational purposes, including viewing in class.
Our
Box of Broadcasts (BoB) guidance will teach you how to link directly to
recorded programmes from the BBC and Channel 4 from your Aspire list.
For teachers of film making and students studying to be filmmakers, if
you are directly teaching or learning how to make films and sound
tracks, there is no infringement of copyright in the act of recording
content. The product of these exercises, however, shouldn't be shown to
audiences beyond those giving or receiving instruction and so can't be
broadcast or sold.
Face-to-Face teaching (lectures, seminars, etc)
There is a provision in the Copyright Act which allows educational
establishments to perform, play and show copyright works to audiences of
students and staff for the purposes of instruction. This does not include any screenings where members of the public might be present.
In real terms, this means that literary, dramatic and musical works
can be performed live in all forms of face-to-face teaching without the
need to ask permission of the copyright owner. It also means that sound
recordings, films and broadcasts can be played and screened in lectures
(for example) without seeking permission from the copyright owner first.
This is despite the copyright notice or warning which may feature on
the work, using phrases such as "strictly for home use" and so on. This
provision in the Copyright Act overrides these types of statement.
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Music / audio
Playing music and sound recordings in class
You may play music in a lecture, seminar or tutorial provided that your
audience consists only of academic staff and students and the music is
for the purposes of instruction. The phrase "purposes of instruction" is
difficult to interpret but is likely to also cover the playing of music
to aid the learning process. If you want to play music, please ensure
that it is from a legitimate source -- something you have paid for, rather than accessed illegally. You can read our guide on how to use music and sound for more detailed information.
Copying music and sound recordings
Our e-resource BoB contains many performances which have been aired on television and radio, our BoB guidance shows you how to record these performances or link to already recorded performances from your Aspire lists.
Otherwise, you must not copy music and sound recordings unless you have
the express written permission of the copyright holder (in most cases,
the record/sound production company). However, if you are a teacher of
film making, or a student studying to become a filmmaker you can copy
films and sound tracks in the course of either giving or receiving
instruction.
You must not upload your personal digital music to your studentcentral module or other areas of the Web.
Copies of sound recordings or printed music must not be used in examinations or assessment - originals only must be used.
Using music and sound in teaching and learning materials
From your Aspire list you can link to many musical performances and sound recordings stored in the e-resource BoB, our BoB guidance shows you how to do this.
If you want to include music and sound recordings that aren't on BoB,
in your internal teaching materials (including those on studentcentral), there are plenty of sources of copyright-friendly music and sound
or licenced music and sound recordings that you do not need to pay to
use. Please note that you may only be able to stream rather than
download some resources, but in these instances you should provide a
link instead.
Using music and sound in multimedia productions for the Web (excluding studentcentral)
If you want to use music and sound recordings in a media production that
you wish to publish to the Web, more often than not, you will need
permission from the copyright holder to include music and sound in your
online productions. Most 'free' music and sound will be granted to you
under the conditions of a licence, so you should always check licence
agreements (or terms and conditions) to see whether you are allowed to
use products in the way you intend. If you are in any doubt, please email your campus library for help.
Using music and sound in multimedia exhibits or dance performances (recorded or live)
Please read our guide on how to use music and sound in your exhibit legally, email your campus library if you have questions.
Publishing to YouTube
Since YouTube's agreement with the music licencing agency PRS, all
videos uploaded which contain commercial tracks will not constitute a
copyright infringement as these music tracks will be covered by
YouTube's agreement. Please note that this ONLY applies to YouTube and
not other sites such as the University website. You may therefore make a
video which features a recent popular song and upload it to YouTube
without worrying about it infringing copyright, you can even link to
this video from studentcentral but if you wish to upload this video elsewhere, you will have to remove the track or pay to use it.
Radio broadcasts
You can record many radio broadcasts in our e-resource BoB, our BoB guidance shows you how to do this.
Examination and Assessment
Provided that the copyright material in the questions is properly
credited (where it can be), you do not need to seek permission to use
materials as part of your examination questions or your answers to
assignments and exams.
Musical works have more restrictions. You are not allowed to make a
reprographic copy of a musical work for use by an examination candidate
who is to perform the work.
Research students who wish to have their theses digitised or
disseminated online will need to obtain copyright clearance for all
third party material which does not fall under the defence of fair dealing .
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Publish or present your article, book or eThesis
Once your work is made available to the public, make sure your use of other people's work is legal. You're often required to
either provide evidence that you have obtained copyright clearance for
third party content or sign an indemnity form to protect the repository
or publishers from claims of infringement from copyright owners.
Third party material includes any works that were made by other people
that you’ve reproduced in your work. Examples of this are photographs
and other illustrations such as maps, graphs, tables or models; music
scores; entire copies of news reporting, films, tv, radio programmes, or
music.
Sometimes the owners of these
works are the publishers themselves; sometimes it rests with the
creators themselves. You may wish to include as appendices material that you have published
in journals, books or conference proceedings. Often it’s the case that
authors sign away their copyright to the publisher, so you must check the publisher's copyright policy or
your agreement with the publisher to see how you can make this work
publicly accessible in an online repository.
In the case of conference presentations, obtain permission to use the work for the ephemeral presentation, the subsequent filmed presentation, and/or in
hand-outs distributed on paper or online.
If the conference organisers want to film your presentation, you have
the right to give or deny consent to have your presentation filmed. You also have rights over how the
recording is used. These are known as performers' rights. Ideally, they
will have a formal agreement for you to sign, but some of the smaller
conferences may not use agreements or consent forms. Again, if you give
your consent for your presentation to be recorded, you will need to make
sure you have the rights to include any copyright material in your
presentation in the recording.
It is your responsibility to arrange the
permissions necessary in order to use others' works; otherwise it might be
necessary to remove those items from your published work.
Third party copyright in unpublished material
Unpublished material may attract copyright in manuscripts, accounts,
minutes etc. If the author, artist or creator has been dead for more
than 50 years and the work is over 100 years old it is probably out of
copyright. However, most unpublished works will still be in copyright
until 2039 and this includes photographs.
This means, if you have included extracts from unpublished works (unpublished
theses, private letters, postcards, diaries, photographs) you
will need permission of the copyright owner before publishing it
(this could rest with the estate or archive.) Permission to reproduce
this material must be sought before publication.
Seeking permission
Once you review the acceptable circumstances in which you can use someone's work and you judge that permission for the inclusion of an extract is necessary, then you will need to identify the
rights-holder.
This can be difficult if they have died and you cannot
contact their estate or relatives. The first port of call would usually
be the publisher of a published work. Either they will be able to give
permission or advise you that the author is the rights-holder and pass
on any relevant contact details.
Publishers often have Rights and
Permissions sections with contact details that can easily be found from
their websites. You will need to get written permission, although email
can be acceptable provided you keep evidence of all your correspondence.
You will need to be precise about the details of the material, such as
the page numbers or figure numbers. You will also need to be specific
about how and where the requested material is to be used, indicating
that it will be included in a repository and published on the Internet.
Please be aware that illustrations in books often have a rights-holder
of their own, who will probably need to be contacted separately.
Proforma for seeking permissions
In the case of material taken from books or journals, the student should
seek permission from the publisher. Many publishers give details on
their website (under, for example, ‘copyright’, ‘rights’, ‘permissions’,
or ‘terms and conditions’) of how to seek permission and who to
contact. If the publisher does not own the copyright, they should pass
on your enquiry to whoever does.
If permission is granted, any evidence (letters, emails etc) should be
retained by the student and the work adequately acknowledged in the
thesis (eg ‘Permission to reproduce this≈ has been granted by≈’).
This is a suggested wording you can use when contacting publishers:
I am a postgraduate research student at the University of Brighton
working towards my thesis on (insert title of thesis). I wish to include
the following extract in my thesis and am contacting you as the author
or rights-holder:
Provide a full citation for the work or specific item e.g. an image that you wish to use
I wish to include this work within the electronic version of my thesis,
which I am required to deposit in the University of Brighton repository
(http://eprints.brighton.ac.uk/) which is non-commercial and openly
available to all.
I would be grateful if you could advise if this will be acceptable.
What to do if permission is not granted
If you were unable to gain permission to use any third party
copyright material, you are taking a risk by making it public. In the case of a thesis it may be necessary for to make two
versions- the examined version, including all third party
material, and a second version for
electronic publication, with any un-cleared third party material
excluded. For material that cannot be made publicly available, a
standard text such as ‘This material is unavailable due to copyright
restrictions’ can be substituted.
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Printing and Copying 
