Please note that we are not qualified to provide 'legal advice' around copyright and intellectual property. The information provided here is for guidance and information purposes only.
Copyright law grants exclusive rights to creators of original works of authorship. National laws usually extend protections to such works automatically once fixed in a tangible medium, prohibiting the making of copies without the rights holder’s permission, among other things. On the internet, even the most basic activities involve making copies of copyrighted content. As content is increasingly uploaded, downloaded, and shared online, copyright law is becoming more relevant to more people.
The 1988 Copyright, Design and Patents Act governs the legal framework around copyright in the UK. This establishes that Copyright lasts 70 years beyond the death of the original rights holder(s).
The copyright legislation refers to copyright subsisting in four broad areas:
For more please see the UK Government guidance around the rights associated with copyright.
Broadly speaking there are three ways to legitimately make use of copyrighted content:
For copyright queries related to teaching materials, the relevant Academic Liaison Librarian for your department can provide advice.
For researchers looking to re-use copyrighted material in a publication, the Research & Scholarly Publications team can be contacted for guidance in the first instance.
A session on copyright considerations is provided three times a year as part of the Doctoral College's 'Becoming a Professional Researcher' week to support recently enrolled Postgraduate Researchers.
CC licence | Commercial re-use permitted? |
Adaptation / Remixing of content permitted? |
Description |
---|---|---|---|
CC Zero (CC 0) | Yes | Yes | Works published under this license are in the public domain, with authors waiving copyright and associated IP rights. |
Attribution (CC BY) | Yes - subject to attribution | Yes - subject to attribution | The most accommodating CC licence which still enables authors to maintain their moral intellectual property rights. This is the licence which UKRI and Wellcome Trust require to be provided on articles which acknowledge their research funding. |
Attribution Share Alike (CC BY SA) | Yes - subject to terms | Yes - subject to terms | Same as the CC BY licence, with the additional rule that works derived from the original work must also be subject to the same licence terms. |
Attribution No Derivatives (CC BY ND) | Yes - subject to attribution | No | The work cannot be adapted, however re-use of the original work for any other purpose, including commercial, is permitted subject to attribution. |
Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY NC) | No | Yes - subject to terms |
Re-use must be non-commercial, but adaptation of original work is permitted subject to the licence terms. Derivative works do not have to be licensed on same terms. |
Attribution Non Commercial – Share Alike (CC BY NC SA) | No | Yes - subject to terms |
Re-use must be non-commercial, but adaptation of original work is permitted subject to the licence terms. Derivative works must be licensed on same terms as the original work. |
Attribution Non Commercial No Derivatives (CC BY NC ND) | No | No | The most restrictive of the Creative Commons licenses. Content can be copied and redistributed, subject to the terms of the license. |
Major research funders such as UKRI and Wellcome Trust require that articles which acknowledge their research funding be made subject to a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. The Wellcome Trust have required this licence to apply by default to publications made available via either the 'Gold' or 'Green' open access routes since the 1st January 2021. UKRI are requiring that this licence applies to articles made Open Access via both the 'Gold' and 'Green' OA routes from April 2022.
Further information on Creative Commons licences is available on the Creative Commons website.
Can apply to works which are ‘crown copyright’ and produced by UK government bodies. An Open Government licence is equivalent to a CC BY licence in allowing a user to:
Above uses are permitted on the condition that due acknowledgement and attribution is provided.
Most commonly applied in the field of software, Copyleft principles permit the free distribution and modification of the original work under the proviso that the same rights be applied to any derivative work created from the original. This is equivalent to the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (CC BY-SA) licence.
Certain exceptions only apply if the use of the work is a ‘fair dealing’. For example, the exceptions relating to research and private study, criticism or review, or news reporting.
‘Fair dealing’ is a legal term used to establish whether a use of copyright material is lawful or whether it infringes copyright. There is no statutory definition of fair dealing - it will always be a matter of fact, degree and impression in each case. The question to be asked is: how would a fair-minded and honest person have dealt with the work?
Factors that have been identified by the courts as relevant in determining whether a particular dealing with a work is fair include:
The relative importance of any one factor will vary according to the case in hand and the type of dealing in question.
Information taken from the UK Government guidance around copyright exceptions.
For examples around specific exceptions which come under Fair Dealing, please see the boxes below.
If your use of a copyrighted work goes beyond the ‘fair dealing’ principles outlined, then permission ought to be sought from the rights holder for us to include it in the version of your thesis which is distributed online.
Step 1) Identify who the rights holder(s) are
Step 2) Write to formally request permission – a template letter is available on our libguide below
Step 3) Allow time for a response - a lack of response from a rights holder cannot be taken to indicate that their permission has been granted
Step 4) Conduct any correspondence in writing and maintain records
More information is available via the Copyright User website.
A short extract of a work can be used to support or show criticism or form part of a review of a work; in such cases it is not necessary to obtain the copyright holders permission to use the extract. It must be 'fair dealing' and be sufficiently acknowledged. The material quoted must be accompanied by actual discussion, assessment or material to deserve the criticism and review classification.
There is an exception to copyright that permits people to use limited amounts of copyright material without the owner’s permission for the purpose of parody, caricature or pastiche.
For example a comedian may use a few lines from a film or song for a parody sketch; a cartoonist may reference a well known artwork or illustration for a caricature; an artist may use small fragments from a range of films to compose a larger pastiche artwork.
It is important to understand, however, that this exception only permits use for the purposes of caricature, parody, or pastiche to the extent that it is fair dealing.
Text and data mining is the use of automated analytical techniques to analyse text and data for patterns, trends and other useful information. Text and data mining usually requires copying of the work to be analysed.
An exception to copyright exists which allows researchers to make copies of any copyright material for the purpose of computational analysis if they already have the right to read the work (that is, they have ‘lawful access’ to the work). This exception only permits the making of copies for the purpose of text and data mining for non-commercial research. Researchers will still have to buy subscriptions to access material; this could be from many sources including academic publishers.
Publishers and content providers will be able to apply reasonable measures to maintain their network security or stability but these measures should not prevent or unreasonably restrict researcher’s ability to text and data mine. Contract terms that stop researchers making copies to carry out text and data mining will be unenforceable.
You are allowed to copy limited extracts of works when the use is non-commercial research or private study, but you must be genuinely studying (like you would if you were taking a college course). Such use is only permitted when it is ‘fair dealing’ and copying the whole work would not generally be considered fair dealing.
The purpose of this exception is to allow students and researchers to make limited copies of all types of copyright works for non-commercial research or private study. In assessing whether your use of the work is permitted or not you must assess if there is any financial impact on the copyright owner because of your use. Where the impact is not significant, the use may be acceptable.
If your use is for non-commercial research you must ensure that the work you reproduce is supported by a sufficient acknowledgement.