At Roehampton we want to ensure that staff and students remain legally compliant when using resources created by others. If you use third-party copyright materials as a part of your teaching or research, you need to make sure that your usage is legal.
Copyright is a system of law designed to give creators of original works the right to control the ways in which their work is used. Protected works include written material, dramatic works, music, computer programs, websites, databases, sound recordings, films, broadcasts, translations and typographical layout. Works do not have to be published to be protected.
Copyright lasts for a fixed term period. This varies depending on the format of the work in question, but as a general rule copyright expires 70 years after the death of the creator. However after this time works may fall into the Public Domain.
Copyright law applies to staff and students at partner institutions in the same way as it applies at Roehampton. Copyright is a territorial law. Overseas partnerships must ensure they are abiding by the terms of the law in their country. UK Copyright law and associated exceptions will not apply in these cases.
Copyrighted material can only be used: if you have the express permission of the copyright holder; if it is available under licence (where applicable); or if your usage falls under one of the Fair Dealing exceptions to UK copyright law (UK-based partnerships only).
The author or a creator of a work is normally the copyright holder, but this isn't always the case. For example, if a work is created by an employee in the course of their employment, the employer owns the copyright. Additionally, copyright is an asset that can be sold or gifted. It is common practice for academic journals to require authors to assign the copyright to their article over to the journal publishers before publication – so the author of an article may not necessarily be the copyright holder.
After copyright on a work has expired, it falls into the Public Domain. This means that the work has effectively become public property and may be used freely without the permission of the author/creator. If a work has fallen into the public domain, then it is free to use in any way you see fit, without the need for permission, a licence or even attribution. However, you must remember that the public domain is territory-specific. A work may be public domain in the US, but it is not necessarily free to use in the UK, as copyright laws can differ internationally.
It is a common misconception that materials that are readily available, especially online, are not under copyright, but publicly available is not the same as public domain. All works are under copyright, both digital and in print, until their copyright term expires.
It is not enough to just provide a reference when you use copyrighted materials. Although this is good academic practice, this will not avoid copyright infringement. The copyright owner's express permission is required to reuse copyrighted materials, or the usage must fall under the terms of a licence or a Fair Dealing exception within UK law.
Fair Dealing only applies to UK law. If a partnership is based outside of the UK this exception will not apply. Other countries often have similar exceptions to their copyright laws for the purposes of teaching or education. You are advised to check your country's legal guidance.
Fair Dealing makes provision within the law to legally reproduce limited sections of copyrighted work. It covers reproduction of published material for criticism and review, non-commercial research, and teaching, with certain restrictions. More information about Exceptions to Copyright can be found on the UK.Gov website.
When producing teaching materials, you can use limited amounts of copyrighted materials under the exceptions for Illustration for Instruction (s.32 CDPA), with the following restrictions:
Provided your usage meets all five of these criteria, then your use could be said to be Fair Dealing.
Creative Commons (CC) is a worldwide licence. Any individuals, no matter where in the world they are located, may reuse material that has been made available under CC Licence. You can easily find materials licensed for reuse under Creative Commons using the Creative Commons Search. You can also use materials available in Open Educational Resources, which can be searched for via OER Commons. CC Licensing does not replace copyright; you need to abide by any restrictions on the licence, or doing so is a violation of copyright.
Copyright is still a concern in Moodle/VLE, even though it is password-protected and restricted to Roehampton students and staff. Simply placing copyrighted materials within a password protected environment does not make it legal. You must therefore only upload items to Moodle/VLE when either you or the University are the copyright holder, or if the material is available under licence. Providing links to copyrighted material available online is preferable to uploading it to Moodle/VLE.
If you have used copyrighted material in your lecture or teaching materials, it is normally acceptable to include this when you add the slides to Moodle/VLE, provided that your use of the material falls under one of the exceptions to copyright (see tab – Exceptions to Copyright, above).
Remember that access to your Moodle/VLE site will be restricted to the same class as your teaching sessions.
In most cases, personally scanning and uploading extracts from books or journal articles into Moodle/VLE, or downloading PDFs of articles in our current subscribed resources and uploading these to Moodle/VLE violates the terms and conditions of the journal or resource.
It is normally possible to use copyrighted images for the purposes of education, either under licence or under the terms of an exception to copyright. Photographs, illustrations, paintings, diagrams, and other forms of image are protected by copyright. This is usually for the term of the creator's life, plus 70 years. Following this period, works fall into the public domain.
Images taken from books may be digitised and used under the terms of Roehampton’s CLA (Copyright Licensing Agency) Licence. All digitisations must be done by the University of Roehampton's Library Service.
Images found elsewhere, such as on the internet, can only be used under the terms of an exception to copyright law known as Fair Dealing (see tab – Exceptions to Copyright). For such a use to be acceptable, the image must be directly related to your teaching, and it must also be fully referenced.
Many images can be found online that have been licenced under Creative Commons, and therefore may be used more freely.
You can also use media that has an open licence, such as Creative Commons. CC Licensing allows creators to licence their own work for free reuse, with certain restrictions – normally works under this licence just require attribution, but some prevent commercial reuse or creating derivative works. CC Licensing does not replace copyright; you need to abide by any restrictions on the licence, or doing so is a violation of copyright. You can easily find images licenced for reuse under Creative Commons using the Creative Commons Search. You can also use materials available in Open Educational Resources, which can be searched for using the OER Commons. CC Licensing does not replace copyright; you need to abide by any restrictions on the licence, or doing so is a violation of copyright.
You cannot generally download or use images from Google or similar commercial search engines without seeking permission from the copyright holder, unless your use falls within one of the exceptions. Google is simply a search engine that scans the internet and provides the searcher with any relevant results – copyright holders do not upload their images to Google for free use. If you click on the image you are usually guided to the source website where you might be able to contact the copyright holder for permission. You can also use the Creative Commons Search to search Google Images for works that have a CC licence.
Other forms of open licences in the UK include the Open Government Licence, which covers crown copyright materials and a wide range of data from government and public sector sources.
While data and facts are not eligible for copyright protection, it is possible for the visual display of data to be copyrighted. So graphs, diagrams and charts may be protected by copyright.
It is normally possible to use copyrighted video and filmed materials either under licence or under the terms of an exception to copyright. Film works are protected for the life of the principal crew, plus 70 years. This term also applies to videos published online. Broadcasts (Television, Radio, etc.) are protected for 50 years following the date of broadcast. Following this period, works fall into the public domain.
Some video material can be found online that has been licenced under Creative Commons, and therefore may be used more freely (see tab – Exceptions to Copyright, above).
Any further filmed materials under copyright protection may be used in teaching sessions, provided this use is covered by an exception to copyright known as Fair Dealing (see tab – Exceptions to Copyright). For such a use to be acceptable, only a small amount of the video may be used and it must be directly related to your teaching. It must also be fully referenced. It is not generally advisable to reproduce such content in Moodle sites.
Video found on YouTube and similar online video hosting services can be especially problematic. Although the site is used by content creators for distributing their own work, it is also used by third-parties to upload video that they may not hold the copyright to. It is always advisable to link out to content hosted in YouTube and similar services, rather than upload or embed it.
It is illegal under UK copyright law to format shift media, such as converting a DVD to an mp4 file to play on a computer.
Fair Dealing only applies to UK law. If a partnership is based outside of the UK this exception will not apply. Other countries often have similar exceptions to their copyright laws for the purposes of teaching or education. You are advised to check your country's legal guidance.
Fair Dealing makes provision within the law to legally reproduce limited sections of copyrighted work for the purposes of research. It covers reproduction of published material for criticism and review and non-commercial research with certain restrictions. For research, these restrictions are:
This exception applies only to non-commercial research. This covers research that is not, either directly or indirectly, for profit. Therefore this exception will not normally include research done for publication with commercial publishers.
This exception does not permit making multiple copies for third parties, so cannot be done on behalf of students or colleagues even if the copies are intended for private research. Therefore, copies of works cannot be made to share with staff/students groups or uploaded to Moodle under the terms of this exception.
For more information about copyright and research, please refer to guidance on the UK Government web site.