UK copyright law permits anyone to copy from a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work for your own private study,  providing you are accessing the original legally, and your use is "fair dealing" (see below).

It is your responsibility to avoid infringing copyright when using University of York equipment to print, photocopy or scan.

You can also ask a librarian or archivist to make a copy for you, although you may be required to sign a declaration that you are not infringing copyright, and you may be charged to cover costs.  At York the Borthwick Institute for Archives offers a staffed copying service for material in their collections, including the University's Rare Books and local history sources.

Your lecturer does not have an automatic right to make copies for students.  For information about what lecturers are allowed to copy,  see the Teaching tab.

If you have a disability which makes it difficult for you to work with material in its original format, and there's no accessible version available, you are entitled to copy the whole work into a different format which you can access more easily, or ask someone else to copy it for you. The Library offers: a staffed Copying and Scanning Service for students with disabilities SensusAccess for converting files into an accessible format.

Start from the principle that your copying shouldn't undermine the rights-holder's market for their work, i.e. it doesn't substitute for purchasing/paying to view the original.

Just because you have accessed the original free-of-charge, don't conclude that copyright doesn't apply:  the rights-holder has chosen to make their material available to everyone, but not necessarily to allow other people to re-use it.

Probably fair	Probably not fair
Photocopying a few pages from a library book	Selling your photocopy to another student
Downloading an article from an e-journal to read offline	Emailing the file to a friend at another university
Snipping a photo from a website to include in an assignment	Using the photo to illustrate your own blog

In most countries, copyright expires 70 years after the death of the creator.  But a publisher or distributor who re-issues older material (for instance, a new edition of a Victorian novel, or a digital copy of a Renaissance painting) may be entitled to claim copyright in the new version, to protect their investment.

In the UK, it's legal for students to reproduce a "fair" amount of copyright material in classroom activities or assessments, for the attention of classmates, tutors, and examiners. Don't forget to attribute your source!

• Unless you've been asked to submit a portfolio of your sources for your assessors,  try to avoid making copies of published material (book chapters, journal articles and more) simply to give them to other people - share the link or the reference instead.

• Reproducing a modest amount of somebody else's published work in the form of a fully referenced quote or a low-resolution or cropped image does not infringe their copyright. If you want to incorporate a more substantial amount of copyrighted material, such as a poem, artwork or hi-res photo in its entirety, consider the risk: is it possible that the rights-holder could discover that their work has been used in this way and raise an objection? If so, then you can try contacting them for permission (further guidance is provided on the For Researchers page)

• The captions for any images you reproduce should provide information about the image and its source in accordance with your department's preferred referencing style. You should also identify the rights-holder (e.g. "Copyright © University of York"), reiterate any copyright statements or licensing terms indicated at the source (e.g. "All rights reserved", or "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence").

If your work will be made available to future students by your department then you should be particularly careful to respect other people's copyright when reproducing and attributing their material.

If you intend to share your assessed work with a wider audience, bear in mind that you will be increasing your risk of facing a claim for any unlicensed reproduction of other people's material.  

Whether you are blogging, creating a presentation, writing for publication or designing a poster, you are likely to want to illustrate your material with other people's images.

Bear in mind that free-to-view images are not necessarily free to re-use. Even uncredited photos on transient websites may be protected by copyright.  

UK copyright law permits you to 'quote' other people's images, provided that they are relevant to your discussion or critique (i.e. not just used for decorative purposes), and that you have used no more than is required for your specific purpose. You also need to abide by 'fair dealing': your use of the image must have no impact on the market for the original (you should use a lower resolution or cropped version of the image, if possible).

Corporate logos can be particularly problematic as they are likely to be trademarked as well as protected by copyright, so you may need to contact the company to use their logo in any work that's shared beyond the classroom. 

Be aware that even your own photos of artworks and panoramas may not be risk-free: although an artist's copyright may have expired (usually 70 years after their death), the gallery may have a 'no photographs' policy which doesn't exempt educational use, or the country where you took the photo may impose legal restrictions on the reproduction of copyright material sited in public (including France, Italy and Greece).

You must fully acknowledge the rights-holder; the captions for any images you reproduce should provide information about the image and its source in accordance with your department's preferred referencing style. You should also identify the rights-holder (e.g. " Copyright © University of York"), reiterate any copyright statements or licensing terms indicated at the source (e.g. "All rights reserved", or "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License") and state whether you have obtained any necessary permissions to use the image. 

University of York students viewing a recorded lecture or making a recording independently should be aware that sharing the recording with anyone other than your tutor may breach copyright on two counts:

• The lecturer or the University owns the copyright to the original content

• Other people's copyright material which was included in the lecture may be licensed for classroom use only.

Furthermore, sharing a recording or photo of your lecturer without their permission could infringe their right to privacy (the same for any members of the audience who can be identified).

University of York students may find themselves subject to disciplinary procedures if they don't follow the University's guidelines for recording lectures.

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 in the UK. These performances would only be open to relevant students and staff, and if needed, to external examiners. The law does not cover inviting a non-University audience, charging for tickets, or recording the performance.

To show a film, stage a theatrical performance 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.

Contact your Faculty Librarians if you have any further questions not addressed in this guide.