Library Subject Guides
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA) gives the author or creator the exclusive right to copy, adapt, communicate, lend or sell copies of the work, although this right can be sold or transferred.
Limited re-use of copyright material by a third party is permitted in exceptional circumstances, including some educational scenarios.
The CDPA protects an author or creator's economic interests, by providing a legal framework for deciding when and to what extent copyright has been infringed. 2014 amendments to the CDPA took account of developments in digital technology to extend the limits to scenarios in which material can be copied fairly. Copyright legislation is territorial, with agreements such as the Berne Convention which seek to harmonise some of these laws internationally.
The legislation can be interpreted in different ways by the courts, with new precedents set by the outcomes of individual cases. This is known as case law. It’s sometimes difficult to provide certain advice in response to copyright queries as there is so much room for interpretation.
Copyright is an automatic right which applies to a wide range of creative works in material form, giving creators of original works the right to control the use of their material by third parties, for a fixed period of time. (Protection of the original idea relies on Intellectual Property rights).
All these works are protected by copyright
Copyright is a property right, so can be transferred or sold. The person who owns the copyright has the exclusive right to
If you do any of the above acts without permission from the copyright owner, you may be infringing copyright. Dealing with infringing copies made by another party - by storing, distributing or selling them - is also a violation of copyright.
When the rights-holder is indeterminate or untraceable, copyright material becomes an orphan work. The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) provides a scheme for registering and obtaining permission to use orphan works, however this only applies within the UK on a temporary basis (up to seven years) and requires payment of fees at both the application and licensing stages.
Copyright protection starts as soon as a work is created, for a fixed term. Copyright in literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work usually extends until 70 years after the creator’s death. The UK Intellectual Property Office provides more information about copyright duration for work in other formats.
Prior to the implementation of CDPA 1988, unpublished works remained protected by copyright in perpetuity. This protection was removed, with a 50-year transitional period, hence a work unpublished in 1988, whose creator was already dead, will remain in copyright until 2039.
In addition to copyright, creators of original works are also granted moral rights, to protect their reputation.
The author can waive both the right to be identified and the right to object to derogatory treatment. However, unlike copyright, moral rights cannot be transferred to another person.
People who enact a work have a performer's right to be consulted about the recording of their performance or the use of any recording. Performers can choose whether to give their consent to making and distributing further copies.
There are some exceptions within the law which allow you to copy material under certain circumstances without infringing copyright.
Most of these exceptions apply to everyone, and are intended to encourage creative and innovative uses of copyright material while protecting the interests of the rights-holder.
Other exceptions only apply in an educational context, and some are designed to enable libraries to preserve material, share it with another library or supply off-site, with conditions.
Several of these exceptions rely on the concept of Fair Dealing, which has no legal definition, although a large body of case law has established some boundaries:
Re-use of a modest portion of a copyright work (<10% is often used as a guideline), fully attributed, for a limited audience, for a limited time, in a non-commercial environment, may be defensible as 'fair'. Courts have been willing to stretch this definition in cases where there is clearly no impact on the market for the original work.
In addition, the University holds several licences which allow members to copy and re-use some types of material in certain scenarios (see For Teachers for information on how these licences support educational activities including course reading provision).
The list provided at the foot of this page is not exhaustive: the Intellectual Property Office has published a full set of guides to Exceptions to Copyright.
Within the boundaries of fair dealing, anyone (not only students and academics) can make a single copy of an extract from a copyright work, for their own non-commercial research or private study, accompanied by sufficient acknowledgement.
For example: you can photocopy a chapter from a library book to read at home, or a page of sheet music to practise.
Researchers can copy published text and data in bulk in order to carry out lexical analysis to derive patterns from the dataset.
For example: you are part of a university team researching medical history by using a specially-developed application to log every instance of the word "cancer" and its context in the British Medical Journal's archives.
You can use an extract from any published work to accompany your own work, with sufficient acknowledgement. The context must be fair dealing, and you must be able to justify why you need the amount you've chosen to reproduce. Using other people's photos without permission for news reporting is explicitly excluded.
For example: you can take a screenshot from a website for use in a Powerpoint presentation, or a few seconds of a music track to accompany an animation you’ve created.
When no accessible version is available to buy or borrow, a single copy of any type of copyright work can be made by or for a person with any disability which “prevents the person from enjoying the work to the same degree as a person who does not have that disability”. An educational establishment can make accessible copies for multiple users under the same terms.
For example: if you have difficulty reading from print, you can ask the Library to create a digital copy of a textbook for your screen-reader.
Within the boundaries of fair dealing, any teacher or student can copy an extract from any copyright work for the purposes of "giving or receiving instruction" in a non-commercial context, including setting or completing assessment tasks. This exception should not be used for course reading, which is covered by the University's CLA Licence.
For example: a tutor can include a low-resolution reproduction of an artwork in a course handout, or upload a scene from a film to the VLE, with full attribution.
Teachers and students can perform a literary, dramatic or musical work for an internal audience, or play a sound recording, film or broadcast for the purpose of instruction.
For example: A student ensemble can screen a film while performing the soundtrack live to an audience of fellow students and tutors for an assignment.
This exception does not cover:
The copyright guidance presented here is for general information only and does not constitute legal advice.
The University accepts no liability for any errors, omissions, or misleading statements in these pages, or for any loss which may arise from reliance on materials contained in these pages.