For Students and Researchers
The purpose of this section is to provide students and researchers with guidance about the reproduction and distribution of their work and the work of others, in addition to the information found in Copyright Basics.
If you, as a student or researcher, are also involved in teaching, you may find it useful to refer to the FAQs in For Lecturers and Instructors.
You may make a single copy of a published literary, artistic, dramatic or musical work for your own personal non-commercial research or private study by means of photocopying or scanning or photography, to the following limits:
- one chapter of a book up to a maximum of 5 per cent of the whole or extracts from a book up to a maximum of 5 per cent of the whole of the book
- one article of a journal issue
- one article from an issue of a newspaper
- one paper of one set of conference proceedings
- one report of one case from a book of law reports
- up to 5 per cent of an anthology of short stories or poems or one short story or one poem if not more than 10 pages
- up to 10 per cent (if not more than 20 pages or 2 pages if brief) of a short book without chapters, report, pamphlet or standard
- a short excerpt from a musical work for study purposes but not performance.
Fair dealing copying of a sound recording, film or broadcast for your own non-commercial research or private study, according to the government’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO), means that a limited amount of a sound recording, film or broadcast may be copied for personal use. “This amount is restricted to fair dealing, which rules out unfair or unreasonable uses such as copying a whole film for ‘research’ instead of buying the DVD.”
Upon your request a librarian or archivist may make and supply you with a copy of one article in any one issue of a periodical, or a reasonable proportion of any other published work, or a single copy of the whole or part of an unpublished work, provided you agree and sign up to the terms of a user declaration wherein you agree to use the supplied copy only for private study and non-commercial research.
These guidelines do not apply to copying material to make it available elsewhere, e.g. in PowerPoint presentations or on a website.
From Library electronic resources, generally you are permitted to:
- Access, search, download and print articles and book chapters, the maximum normally permitted is the fair dealing limit of one chapter or 5 per cent, whichever is greater.
- Access, search, download and print a small number of records from a database for your own private study or non-commercial research.
You are not permitted to:
- Print or make permanent electronic copies of more than one article from one issue of a journal or one chapter from an e-book
- Carry out systematic, bulk or automatic downloading, unless the downloading of content is for the purpose of text or data mining
- Use content for commercial purposes
- Post any content on the Internet
Specific terms and conditions and copyright restrictions for individual titles are normally listed in the footer of the publisher’s pages or the website of the service or publisher.
The fair dealing ‘criticism or review, quotation and news reporting’ exception permits you to quote from/use a short extract from a published work or from a performance of a published work, if the extent of the quotation or extract is no more than is required to make your academic point and the author and source are properly cited.
You may also include a small number of figures or illustrations from journal articles and books, provided they are used only to make an academic point and the author and source are properly cited.
You should request permission from a copyright owner when neither law nor licence permit you to use a copyrighted work in the way you wish.
In other words, you will need to ask for permission unless you can rely on one or more of the following:
- your use of the work is permitted by one or more of the copyright exceptions in UK copyright law, which include “fair dealing copyright exceptions” such as use of a short extract/quotation from published material for teaching (‘illustration for instruction’) or as part of a critical commentary (‘criticism or review’). (For further information on copyright exceptions, see "Are there any exceptions to copyright...?")
- your intended use of the work is permitted by an open access licence, e.g. a paper released under one of the Creative Commons licences or other open access licence, e.g. Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY Licence), the UK Government’s Open Government Licence, from a journal in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) (see "What are the Creative Commons Licences?")
- your intended use of the work is covered by terms that may permit your use, e.g. website or other platform terms of use or special permissions such as use of journal article figures or illustrations in STM PSP Guidelines for quotation and other academic uses of excerpts from journal articles, January 2016:
Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) Documents, enter ‘Guidelines for Quotation From Journal Articles’ - the work is covered by a licence the University has:
- with publishers of library resources, e.g. e-journals, e-books, databases
- with collective copyright licensing agencies, e.g.
- Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) HE Licence for multiple copying of journal articles and book chapters to provide to students in Moodle (see "I have come across a journal article/chapter of a book...?");
- Educational Recording Agency (ERA) Licence for the recording and showing of television and radio programmes, to show and provide to students in Moodle (see "Can I record and show/play television..?");
- Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) Licence for copying and use of newspaper articles (see "What about newspapers?").
- the work you wish to use is in the public domain, i.e. copyright in the work has expired and is no longer protected by copyright (see "How long does copyright last?").
The legal exceptions:
‘Fair dealing’ is a limitation and exception to the exclusive right granted by copyright law to the author of a creative work, the UK’s fair dealing exceptions –
- ‘Fair dealing’ copying of a literary, dramatic, musical or artistic work, sound recording or film for your own private study or non-commercial research
- ‘Fair dealing’ with a copyright work (using a short extract) for the sole purpose of illustration for instruction, the “teaching exception”
- ‘Fair dealing’ with a copyright work (using a short extract) for extracts for criticism or review, quotation, news reporting
- ‘Fair dealing’ with a copyright work (using a short extract) for the purposes of parody, caricature and/or pastiche.
Other copyright exceptions in UK law –
- Copyright in a work expires, i.e. the work becomes part of the ‘public domain’
- Copies for text and data analysis for non-commercial research
- Accessible copies of a copyright work for a disabled person
- Performing a literary, dramatic or musical work at the University
- Playing or showing of a sound recording, film or broadcast at the University
- Copying or issuing a copy of an abstract of a journal article on a scientific or technical subject
- Making a graphic work representing, or a photograph or film of, buildings, sculptures, models for buildings and works of artistic craftsmanship (“freedom of panorama”)
- Copyright exceptions for libraries.
A wide range of teaching materials, such as recorded lectures, PowerPoint presentations and examination papers, are made available to you while studying at the University. Copyright in these materials is generally held by lecturers/instructors or the University or third parties.
While you are encouraged to use the materials to support your learning and your coursework, this does not extend to making the materials available to others, including uploading teaching materials to websites or social media.
If your material has been published commercially, you should check your publishing agreement to see whether its terms and conditions permit your intended distribution. Regarding journal articles, many publishers do not allow PDF versions to be used, but may allow pre-prints or post-prints or re-publishing/re-use after specific embargo periods. Should you not have your publishing agreement to hand, Sherpa Romeo outlines author re-use permitted by major journal publishers.
If your material contains extracts from third party works, e.g. others’ diagrams, charts, tables etc., you must ensure that you have all the rights necessary from the copyright owner/holder for your intended distribution, e.g. a worldwide licence for distribution worldwide.
Information on publishing agreements, open access:
If the works have been released open access, e.g. by Creative Commons Attribution (BY) Licence, you may copy and provide them to your group at will.
You may also provide links to e-journal articles if the University has a subscription to the journal and your research group members are entitled to access those resources via their Library accounts.
Otherwise, for traditionally published articles and books, the University’s Licence with the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) only permits distribution of journal articles and book chapters for courses of study at the University, not for distribution in research or study groups. Also, there is no general exception or exemption in UK copyright law that allows for the copying and uploading of e-journal articles or books for such a purpose, irrespective of its non-commercial use.
Unless you have written permission from the rights holders, there are no exceptions/defences to copyright infringement in UK copyright law that permit the upload or posting of content from newspapers or magazines to the Internet without the permission of copyright owners, usually publishers.
The University’s Licences with the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) and Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) do not allow for the upload of print or e-versions of their content to websites or social media. However, if made available online to the public without subscription paywalls or other restrictions, links to reports about your research in e-newspaper and e-magazine articles may be provided without the permission of copyright owners.
No. Most materials found on the Internet are protected by copyright and should only be copied and used within the limits set by copyright law and the Terms of Use usually found in the footer of most websites.
If you wish to share materials you have found on the Internet with others, supply them with a link to the source material rather than a copy.
Copyright protection exists as soon as a work is created and recorded/written down in a material form. In UK copyright law, the work does not need to be registered and use of the symbol © is recommended but not required for the work to be protected by copyright. Almost all material on websites and social media is copyright-protected material, but its copyright status is often not evident. All the same, copyright notice or not, copyright rules apply.
Unpublished dissertations or theses, i.e. those held on deposit in the University Library or in a Faculty/Departmental Library, are in-copyright under UK law until the end of the calendar year 2039.
Some dissertations and theses on deposit have notices at their front or back that prohibit copying or publication without the express permission of the author.
Unless licensed or released by its author under different terms, e.g. published online in the University’s digital repository Apollo, an unpublished paper without a copying prohibition notice should be treated as any other unpublished work, i.e. under fair dealing guidelines you may copy one chapter up to a maximum of 5 per cent of the whole or extracts up to a maximum of 5 per cent of the whole for private study and non-commercial research, which means it may not be shared with others or posted on the Internet.
Please note that the fair dealing ‘criticism or review, quotation and news reporting’ exception, which permits you to quote from a published work or from a performance of a published work, does not apply to unpublished works. This means that you may not quote from an unpublished dissertation or thesis without the permission of the author/copyright owner.
First, quick definitions -
A “disabled person” is defined in UK copyright legislation as a person who has a physical or mental impairment which prevents the person from enjoying a copyright work to the same degree as a person who does not have that impairment. A person is not to be regarded as disabled by reason only of an impairment of visual function which can be improved by the use of corrective lenses to a level that is normally acceptable for reading without a special level or kind of light.
An “accessible copy” of a copyright work means a version, by copy or adaptation, which enables the fuller enjoyment of the work by disabled persons. It may include facilities for navigating around the version of the work, but must not include any changes to the work which are not necessary to overcome the problems suffered by the disabled persons for whom the accessible copy is intended.
Examples of accessible copies:
- the making of braille, large print or audio versions of books, newspapers or magazines
- adding audio-description to films or broadcasts for visually impaired people
- making sub-titled films or broadcasts for deaf or hard of hearing people
- works prepared for text reading software
- works produced in particular fonts that are easier to read
There are two copyright exceptions for disability support in UK copyright legislation:
1. A disabled person, or someone acting on their behalf, may make an accessible copy of a copyright protected work of any type whether published or unpublished, even if an accessible copy can be obtained commercially, provided the following conditions are met:
- the disabled person already owns or has lawful access of a copy of the whole or part of the work, e.g. as a library “authorised user”
- the disabled person’s disability prevents them from enjoying the work to the same degree as a person who does not have that disability
- the accessible copy is made for the disabled person’s personal use
If these conditions are not satisfied, making an accessible copy will likely be considered an infringement of copyright, and the subsequent copy an infringing copy.
2. The University, if it has lawful possession of a copy of the whole or part of a published work (or the whole of part of broadcast), may make or supply accessible copies for the personal use of disabled persons, including supply to a person acting on behalf of a disabled person, provided the following conditions are met:
- accessible copies of copyright protected works can be made only from lawfully accessed copies, e.g. copies legitimately purchased or licensed
- the accessible copy may include facilities for navigating around the work, but may not include changes that are not required to deal with the disabled person’s disability
- the accessible copy is made for the disabled person’s personal use
- any fee charged may only cover the cost of making the accessible copy on a non-profit basis
- a judgment is made whether to make an accessible copy or obtain an accessible copy that may be available elsewhere
- an accessible copy must be accompanied by –
(a) a statement that it is made under section 31B of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and
(b) a sufficient acknowledgement of the source copyright work (unless this would be impossible for reasons of practicality or otherwise).
The Copyright Notice template to accompany an accessible copy is available here.
If these conditions are not satisfied, making an accessible copy will likely be considered an infringement of copyright, and the subsequent copy an infringing copy.
Finally, a disabled person or another authorised body or rights holder may make a request to the University to provide within a reasonable time:
a) the list of copyright works for which it has accessible copies and the available formats; and,
b) the name and contact details of any authorised body established in another member State of the European Union from which, or to which, it has imported, exported or accessed an accessible copy.
The main statutory provision for making accessible copies for disabled persons:
Sections 31A, 31B, 31BA, 31BB and 31F of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Recording lectures
You may record lectures if you are a disabled student who finds it problematic to take lecture notes by following the procedure provided in the The Accessibility & Disability Resource Centre study and exam arrangements.
The rights of disabled students to record is a reasonable adjustment under their Student Support Document (SSD), provided that they comply with the rules and restrictions set down by the University and issued by the Disability Resource Centre (DRC). Lecturers who have chosen not to opt in to lecture capture, if applicable, must still permit students to record if this is recommended in their SSD.
The University’s Disability Resource Centre provides information and advice on all aspects of disability. The Accessibility and Disability Resource Centre website and social media feeds provide information for prospective and current students and staff supporting disabled students, including contact links to Disability Advisers and Neurodiversity Advisers at the University.
If copyright no longer subsists in a work, it is said to be in the ‘public domain’ and no permission is required to copy or use that work or quotations, extracts or excerpts from it, but the source must be acknowledged.
According to UK copyright law, the standard term of copyright is to the end of the calendar year 70 years after the author’s death. However, the standard term does not always apply, notably for unpublished works that may be in copyright until the end of the calendar year 2039.
Best to consult the following copyright duration charts:
The National Archives copyright duration charts for UK literary, artistic, dramatic and musical works, look for “flowcharts for Crown copyright and non-Crown copyright”
Note that copyright in a published edition (‘typographical arrangement’) has a separate 25 year copyright term, which means that copying the whole or large part of a ‘new’ edition of an out-of-copyright work published within the last 25 years is not permitted without the permission of the publisher of the ‘new’ edition.
When neither law (e.g. a fair dealing exception such as using a short extract for “criticism or review, quotation, news reporting”) nor licence (e.g. a Creative Commons Licence), permit you to use a copyrighted work in the way you would wish.
The steps in seeking permission from copyright owners to reproduce or use their work:
Identify the copyright owner or holder.
First, you need to identify the copyright owner of the work, usually identified by the © symbol with the copyright owner’s name next to it.
You will often find this at the beginning of a book, alongside or below a photograph, or at the footer of a website, or at the end of a film.
If the copyright owner or holder is a commercial publisher or an academic journal, the quickest way of securing permission is to use the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service.
Journals often provide links to CCC’s RightsLink service directly from the journal article page under ‘Permissions’ or ‘RightsLink’ information.
If the publisher or academic journal does not offer permission through the CCC or its RightsLink service, you need to check the publisher’s or academic journal’s website under ‘Permissions’ or ‘Rights and Permissions’ or ‘Copyright’ or ‘Contact Us’ or similar to find the publisher’s or academic journal’s preferred method of dealing with permissions requests. Some publishers may provide an online permissions request form.
If the copyright owner or holder is an individual or organisation that offers permissions information but does not appear to use any collective copyright licensing broker such as CCC or its RightsLink service or have its own online form, you need to email or write to the individual or organisation, explaining why you wish to use their work and request permission.
Information to include in permission request:
- Identify exactly the material you wish to reproduce, (title, author, excerpt, image, figure, table etc.) and indicate any adaptation or amendment you plan to apply to it.
- Give full details of your intended use, i.e. purpose, format, location, e.g. for upload to a password-protected Moodle course site, for upload to an open website, etc.
- Identify the rights you wish to secure, and the time period of use.
If permission is granted, citation, acknowledgement and credit lines
Permission may come in the form of a letter or e-mail from the publisher and/or copyright owner or it may be in the form of a licence agreement. If the copyright owner has proposed a licence that covers what you need and if you are willing to pay the fee that is requested, then you will be able to use the material in the manner stipulated by the terms of the licence agreement.
Always keep on file any correspondence or written permission or licence as proof of permission.
Any quoted or reproduced material must be provided with a source, naming the copyright owner of the work (who may or may not be the author or creator), its title, and other information such as the specific page/s or other relevant references that will allow the reader to trace the work and verify the quotation.
Copyright acknowledgements should appear next to the item reproduced. Copyright holders often make the position and wording of the acknowledgement a condition of granting permission, so their requirements should be followed carefully.
If you have adapted or modified another’s work with their permission, they will have supplied you with their prescribed credit notice, but in any case, the source credit should include the author/title of the original figure and that the material has been adapted with permission, e.g. “Adapted from…” and “Reproduced with the permission of…”.
All Creative Commons (CC) Licences require the user to attribute the copyright owner/author/creator of the work being used, but how that attribution can be provided is flexible depending on the type of licence and the medium in which the work is being used.
Detailed guides on attributing CC licensed material:
Marking your work with a CC Licence, Creative Commons wiki
Best practices for attribution, Creative Commons wiki
Attributing CC Materials, Creative Commons Australia
If you are licensing your work under a Creative Commons Licence, it is unlikely the copyright owner of third party material you wish to include in your work will give you permission for their material to be released to the world under the Creative Commons Licence that you have chosen for your own work. However, if they have done so and you have marked their work with a credit line as they have prescribed, e.g. “all rights reserved”, to ensure that end-users are aware of any distinction between the permission/licence you have been granted and the terms of the Creative Commons Licence you have chosen to release your work under, mark the licensed item as prescribed and preface your release under a CC Licence with the wording 'Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons [ ] Licence'.
If permission is not granted
Copyright owners/holders have the right to say no to your permission request. Also, if you do not receive a reply to your permission request you cannot presume that you may use the material. It is very important to keep a record of all attempts made to gain permission. If your permission request is ultimately unsuccessful you should remove the material from your work and seek to replace it with a suitable and licensable work, or reassess whether you can use extracts from the work or another suitable work under one of the copyright exceptions such as fair dealing for the purpose of quotation.
Keeping a permissions log
As you work on gaining permissions you should:
- Maintain a log that records your permission requests to the copyright holders and the precise details of the rights granted
- Keep a file of correspondence to and from copyright holders
- Record fees due and paid
Keep a list of the copyright lines or credits requested by copyright holders.
Regarding permissions and reproducing, adapting and redrawing figures, publisher policies vary, so if publishing with a commercial publisher you may wish to seek advice from your commissioning editor.
However, generally, permission is not required if an original figure is created using data or factual information not originally in figure form. The source of the data or factual information must be credited.
Exact reproduction of a previously published figure requires permission. If permission is obtained, the source credit should include the author/title of the original figure and “Reproduced with the permission of…”
Adapting a previously published figure, i.e. changing the previously published form, e.g. copying the figure and replacing some data, requires permission, with the source credit “Adapted from…” (in preference to “Data replotted from …” or other forms), and “Reproduced with the permission of…”
Redrawing a previously published figure entirely, i.e. creating a new and unique figure with new data, does not require permission. Any source data or factual information must be credited.
If difficult to assess whether the contemplated use is an adaptation or a new figure, the default position must be that if you begin with a figure from another publication, it is an adaptation and permission must be obtained.
Posting copyright materials online constitutes republishing or distributing the materials, and only the copyright holder has the right to authorise such acts. Generally, you may not post others’ copyright-protected materials openly online, including to social media such as Twitter or Facebook, without permission from the copyright owner.
Instead of posting a copy of others’ work online, link to the original source, or cite the work so that the user of your website or your page(s) can look up the work for themselves.
Republishing or distributing whole works released under the Creative Commons (CC) Licences is permitted, so they may be shared openly online for non-commercial purposes as long as the works are cited and the specific CC Licence marked and its terms followed.
Always double-check the licensing conditions of individual items, and always provide attribution (and licence terms if CC-licensed) when reusing any image.
Creative Commons (CC) Search
CC Search searches for CC-licensed and public domain content in a variety of media, Google Images, Flickr, Pixabay etc. and across a number of platforms.
Flickr Creative Commons Search
Flickr CC Search allows you to search all Flickr image sources for images that are either CC-licensed or in the public domain.
Xpert
University of Nottingham’s attribution facility “allows you to enter a search term and find images that are stored in Flickr that are either in the public domain or licenced with a creative commons licence. You can then select from the range of images that are presented, and choose to have a licence statement added to the bottom of the image. You can then save the image, or export it to PowerPoint.”
Flickr: The Commons
‘No known copyright restrictions’ release of participating cultural institutions photo archive collections.
Vimeo
Creative Commons-licensed videos search
Wikimedia Commons
CC-licensed or public domain images, sound and video files
Wellcome Images
Digital books, artworks, photos and images of historical library materials and museum objects
Mobygratis
Free music for independent, non-profit film, video, or short
Musopen
Sheet music and recordings
Incompetech
Some Creative Commons-licensed music
Pexels
Images may be used for free, photographer credit appreciated
Pixabay
Images, illlustrations, videos may be used for free, photographer credit appreciated
Unsplash
Images may be used for free, photographer credit appreciated
CSIRO science image (Scientific images)
Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Licence 3.0
NASA Image Galleries (Space)
See Media Usage Guidelines
Servier Medical Art (Medical images)
Free medical images to illustrate publications and Powerpoint presentations – Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Licence 3.0
BioMed Central (BMC)
Open access articles in biomedicine, physical sciences, mathematics and engineering. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Licence 4.0
PLOS One
open access articles published by US Public Library of Science. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution Licence 4.0
Metropolitan Museum of Art Collection Open Access Artworks
public domain artworks that may be downloaded, shared, and remixed without restriction.
Lecturers/presenters usually hold the copyright in the original conference materials they have authored/created. If you would like to share their materials, e.g., their PowerPoint presentation slides, their permission to do so is required, acquired by requesting their permission in writing or by form to distribute their work, which must describe how the materials are to be distributed, e.g. limited only to conference attendees or posted openly on the Internet.
Also, lecturers/presenters often include materials in their conference presentations for which they do not hold the copyright. For example, a lecturer/presenter may have acquired permission from a publisher to include an image or illustration from an article or book in their conference presentation or PowerPoint slides. Additional permission from that publisher would be required if you or the lecturer/presenter would like to copy/distribute the work beyond the allowances of the original permission or licence.
If a conference presentation will be displayed or distributed to an audience apart from University students or faculty, or is to be recorded or streamed and made available online, then using others’ images or illustrations in the presentation would not fall within the ‘fair dealing’ exception of using works for the purposes of ‘illustration for instruction’. If fair dealing is not available, permission from the copyright owner should be obtained.
If you are the lecturer/presenter and are requested to grant permission to a conference organiser for your presentation to be made available online, it is important to check that your permissions to use any third party images or illustrations or other copyrighted materials in your presentation covers this distribution.
You may provide a link to any publicly accessible page of any website, unless you suspect that the material posted on the site is infringing or otherwise unlawful.
Researchers are allowed to make copies of copyright works for text and data analysis for non-commercial research, if certain conditions are met:
- the user has legal access to the work being copied, e.g. as a library “authorised user” that can rely on subscriptions to databases or sources maintained by the library
- the author and source are acknowledged unless to do so is impractical
- copies of works made under the exception may not be transferred, sold or let for hire, except with the permission of the copyright owner
Any contract term that seeks to avoid this exception is void under law, but the government’s Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has added: “Publishers will be able to impose reasonable measures [e.g. researcher access may be made restricted to special servers or the use of publisher APIs] to maintain their network security or stability so long as these measures do not prevent or unreasonably restrict a researcher’s ability to make the copies they need to make for their text and data mining.”
The general principle is that mining of a Library resource may be undertaken so long as the mining falls within the conditions of the statutory exception. The Library should be informed by Library users if technical protection measures imposed by a publisher are restricting the ability to mine their resource. A publisher may get in touch with the Library which holds the material(s) being mined in order to verify levels of downloading.
Advice and support:
Cambridge Libraries, Text & Data Mining
The statutory provision for making copies of copyright works for text and data analysis for non-commercial research:
Section 29A to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Exceptions to copyright: research. Intellectual Property Office, October 2014
Whilst the government’s Office of National Statistics (ONS) expressly states that its web-scraping policy is not applicable outside the ONS, its experience in the area makes the principles it sets out in Section 7 and practices in Section 8 of the ONS Web-scraping policy most useful.
Legal and ethical issues surrounding web scraping are summarised in a list of questions compiled from a literature review in the conference paper Legality and Ethics of Web Scraping, Vlad Krotov, Silva Leiser, 2018 Americas Conference on Information Systems, p.4.
Creative Commons (CC) is an organisation that provides ‘ready-made’ licences to authors/copyright owners of works who wish to release their original works in any media, including the Internet, under certain conditions: https://creativecommons.org/
CC Licences are not an alternative to copyright, nor do they replace copyright, but they allow authors to retain copyright in their works and license their works under standard non-exclusive licence terms.
All Creative Commons Licences allow end-users to make copies of the whole of the work, but end-users are restricted to using the work according to the terms of the particular CC Licence that the work has been released/licensed under.
Creative Commons Licences may be applied to databases and are usually part of open access publishing agreements. Many research funders now require the results of research they fund to be published under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) Licence.
The six Creative Commons Licences, listed below from their most open user terms to most restrictive:
CC BY (Attribution) Licence
Allows a user to copy, distribute, display and perform the work and to create derivative works, i.e. creating an own version/building upon the work that is licensed, including for commercial purposes, subject to the user crediting the author/copyright owner of the original work.
CC BY-SA (Attribution-Share Alike) Licence
Allows a user to copy, distribute, display and perform the work and to create derivative works, including for commercial purposes, subject to the user crediting the author/copyright owner of the original work and making his or her derivative work available on these same licence terms and conditions.
CC BY-ND (Attribution-No Derivative Works) Licence
Allows a user to copy, distribute, display and perform the work including for commercial purposes as long as the original work remains unchanged, i.e. no derivative works, subject to the user crediting the author/copyright owner of the original work.
CC BY-NC (Attribution-Non-Commercial) Licence
Allows a user to copy, distribute, display and perform the work and to create derivative works for non-commercial purposes only, subject to crediting the author/copyright owner of the original work.
CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike) Licence
Allows a user to copy, distribute, display and perform the work and to make derivative works for non-commercial purposes only, subject to the user crediting the author/copyright owner of the original work and making his or her derivative work available on these same licence terms and conditions.
CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works) Licence
Allows a user to copy, distribute, display and perform the work for non-commercial purposes only as long as the original work remains unchanged, i.e. no derivative works, subject to crediting the author/copyright owner of the original work.
Useful information re Creative Commons Licences
Licence chooser, Creative Commons
Considerations for licensors and licensees, Creative Commons wiki
Which Creative Commons licence is right for me? poster, Creative Commons Australia
Marking your work with a CC Licence, Creative Commons wiki
Best practices for attribution, Creative Commons wiki
Attributing CC Materials, Creative Commons Australia
Can I combine material under different Creative Commons licenses in my work? Creative Commons
__________
Content mining, A Guide to Mining CC-Licensed Material, Creative Commons wiki
You need to abide by the terms of the particular Creative Commons (CC) Licence the work has been released under, at times initially marked ‘Some rights reserved’ with an underlying CC Licence. Also, CC Licences require the user to attribute the author/creator of the image, but how that attribution can be provided is flexible depending on the type of licence and the medium in which the image is being used.
Detailed guides on attributing CC licensed material:
Marking your work with a CC Licence, Creative Commons wiki
Information on publishing agreements, open access, research data:
Cambridge Libraries, Copyright for Researchers: Authorship and IP
Office of Scholarly Communication, Open Access, Research Data
Research Gate and Academia.edu are commercial networking sites that encourage researchers to upload and share their research papers, but they are not institutional digital research output repositories such as the University’s Apollo Repository.
What you can do with a paper after it has been accepted for publication depends upon the terms of your publishing agreement.
If your paper has been published open access and released/licensed under a Creative Commons (CC) Licence, you may submit it freely to whomever you wish. However, if your paper is under your publisher’s subscription paywall and has not been released open access, e.g. by CC Attribution (BY) Licence, and unless your publishing agreement expressly permits it, making a copy of the published version in ResearchGate or Academia.edu or otherwise openly available on the internet would be a breach of the terms of your publishing agreement.
Provided you have cleared all copyright in others’ copyright-protected works in your paper you may in the first instance upload your paper to Apollo Repository, the University’s institutional digital repository. A link to your paper in Apollo may then be provided to anyone, including ResearchGate or Academia.edu.
In any case, you may wish to have a look at the terms and conditions in the footer of the ResearchGate and Academia.com sites.
If you are thinking of using papers from ResearchGate and Academia.com, some content on these sites is legally shared, e.g. preprint versions of articles for which the author holds copyright, or material licensed by one of the Creative Commons Licences, but not all papers may have been uploaded with the permission of publishers and copyright owners.
The alternative is to obtain the published papers from the Library or search institutional repositories for a copy that has been posted by its author by using Open Access Button or unpaywall.
Under the University’s Intellectual Property Policy, lecturers own copyright in their original lecture notes and teaching materials, including their PowerPoint presentation slides (but not third party material, i.e. others’ material they may include for the purposes of teaching under statutory copyright exceptions or licence). This means that students should not record lectures or share teaching materials with others or upload teaching materials online without the lecturer’s permission.
However, student-created, non-verbatim notes of lectures may be shared by the student who takes the notes, as long as the notes are created in their own words. Students also have users' rights under statutory copyright exceptions such as fair dealing for the purposes of private study and non-commercial research to copy extracts from teaching materials for their own use.
Disabled students have a right to record lectures as a reasonable adjustment under their Student Support Document (SSD), provided they comply with the procedure provided by the University’s Accessibility and Disability Resource Centre.
Lecturers are obliged to permit a student to record if this is recommended in the student’s SSD.
The University’s Lecture Capture provides an automated system that records lectures and makes them available in Moodle for watching by students on the course of study for which the lectures were given.
When you research and write your dissertation/thesis, you are the author/creator of your original work, but also a user of others’ copyright material if you include others’ (third party) works, e.g. illustrations, images, charts, tables, diagrams, maps etc.
When you include others’ content in your paper, your use of their material must be “authorised” by law - ‘fair dealing’ - or by permission/licence from copyright holders of the material.
After examination of your paper, you may be required by the funder/sponsor of your studies or research, or your Faculty/Department, to submit your dissertation/thesis for distribution online on a dedicated Faculty/Department site or in Apollo, the University’s institutional digital repository (“Apollo Repository”).
You may also be obliged, usually by the funder or sponsor of your studies or research, e.g. one of the Research Councils, to release/license your dissertation/thesis by one of the Creative Commons Licences, most probably the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY Licence).
This guidance is intended to complement instructions given by your Faculty or Department, the Student Registry and the Office of Scholarly Communications (OSC) on fulfilling your degree requirements, e.g. filling in the various Declarations, request to restrict access to your dissertation for a limited period of time (if applicable), and so on, e.g. for PhD, EdD, MSc, MLitt candidates – Submitting your dissertation; Final dissertation submission; Advice for PhD students; for MPhil, MRes candidates.
________________________________
Two practical steps:
1. Assert your copyright in your dissertation/thesis, and;
2. Deal with others’ (‘third party’) copyright material/content (‘works’) you have included in your dissertation/thesis, i.e. authorised under the fair dealing exception or permission has been granted for the use.
1. Protect your copyright
Unless you have agreed otherwise, e.g. with the funder or sponsor of your studies or research, you own the copyright in the original work in your dissertation/thesis.
Copyright protection comes into effect automatically at the creation and noting down of a work and although there is no requirement to register copyright in your dissertation/thesis to protect it, it is advisable to have your dissertation prominently carry a standard copyright notice, e.g.
Copyright © 20XX Author.
You should study the terms of any licence or arrangement for online release of your dissertation/thesis to determine the impact, if any, on any plans you may have to further publish your dissertation/thesis, especially with a commercial publisher.
The University’s Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC) provides guidance on open scholarly publishing, including how to make your dissertation and research available open access:
(See further: "What are the Creative Commons Licences?")
2. Deal with others’ (third party) copyright material you have included in your dissertation/thesis, i.e. by fair dealing exception or permission/licence
Option A – for examination purposes only
i.e. if you are not obliged by a funder or sponsor of your studies or research or your Faculty/Department to release your dissertation/thesis in the Apollo Repository or publicly online elsewhere, e.g. by Creative Commons Attribution (BY) Licence, and do not wish to do so voluntarily –
In copyright terms, for examination purposes and if your dissertation/thesis is only deposited in a Library at the University, it is considered an unpublished work.
If it stays unpublished, because a dissertation/thesis is considered an examination script, i.e. an answer to an exam question, albeit a long one, your use of third party extracts, say brief quotations from published articles or books, may be covered by the statutory exception of ‘fair dealing for the purpose of illustration for instruction’ for examination purposes (s. 32 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA)).
The ‘fair dealing for the purpose of illustration for instruction’ exception applies to those extracts, excerpts or quotations from works included in a dissertation/thesis for examination and deposit in unpublished form in the University Library or another library or archive, but not its publication after examination, in hard copy or online, including in an online repository such as the Apollo Repository or Faculty/Department site.
The statutory exception of ‘illustration for instruction’ is a ‘fair dealing’ exception, which means:
- you may copy only what is reasonably required, i.e. include a portion of another’s work that is necessary for the immediate purpose of illustrating a point in your paper, and;
- your use of another’s work must not impact adversely on exploitation of the work by its owner, e.g. copyright material made available under the illustration for instruction exception must not be made available online in the Apollo Repository, or on another website such as a Faculty or Departmental website, in social media etc., and;
- author and publication details of the source work must be acknowledged unless to do so is impractical.
Option B – for a dissertation/thesis to be released online to the public in the Apollo Repository or by a Faculty/Department
If your dissertation/thesis is to be made available online, in copyright terms it will become a published work. Before upload, you are meant to follow these rules to ensure that your dissertation/thesis meets legal copyright compliance standards for a published work.
What you do not need to seek permission for
- Short text quotations from books, journal articles Custom and practice in academic publishing suggests that short extracts of text/short quotations with full acknowledgement/citation of the source works may be reproduced without formal permission (under ‘fair dealing’ ‘quotation, criticism or review, news reporting, parody’ copyright exception).
- Extracts from works released by open access licence e.g. from an article released under one of the Creative Commons licences or other open access licence that permits your intended use, e.g. Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY Licence), the UK Government’s Open Government Licence, from a journal in the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
- Extracts from material licensed/released by its copyright owner on terms that explicitly allow your intended re-use without making specific permission requests:
For example, for scholarly comment or non-commercial research or educational use, the following Scientific, Technical and Medical (STM) Publishers have agreed that from their journal titles, without further permission, single text extracts of less than 100 words or a series of text extracts totalling less than 300 words may be used for quotation, and a maximum of two figures (including tables) from a journal article or five figures from a journal volume from their journal titles may be used, unless a separate copyright owner is identified in such a figure, in which event permission needs to be obtained from that owner:
AIP Publishing
American Chemical Society
BMJ Publishing Group Ltd
Elsevier
Institute of Physics
International Union of Crystallography
John Wiley & Sons (including Blackwell)
Oxford University Press journals
Portland Press Limited
Royal Society of Chemistry
SAGE Publications
Springer Science+Business Media
Taylor & Francis.
STM PSP Guidelines for quotation and other academic uses of excerpts from journal articles, January 2016:
Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers (STM) Documents, enter ‘Guidelines for Quotation From Journal Articles’.
- Out-of-copyright material:
If copyright no longer subsists in a work, it is said to be in the ‘public domain’ and no permission is required to copy or use that work or quotations, extracts or excerpts from it, but the source must be acknowledged.
According to UK copyright law, the standard term of copyright is to the end of the calendar year 70 years after the author’s death. However, the standard term does not always apply, notably for unpublished works that may be in copyright until the end of the calendar year 2039.
Best to consult the following copyright duration charts:
The National Archives copyright duration charts for UK literary, artistic, dramatic and musical works, look for “flowcharts for Crown copyright and non-Crown copyright”
Note that copyright in a published edition (‘typographical arrangement’) has a separate 25 year copyright term, which means that copying the whole or large part of a ‘new’ edition of an out-of-copyright work published within the last 25 years is not permitted without the permission of the publisher of the ‘new’ edition.
What you do need to seek and obtain permission for
- Substantial sections of text/long quotations
Quotations beyond fair dealing limits require formal permission from the copyright owner/holder. - Epigraphs
- Any extract from a poem/song lyrics
- Any extract from an unpublished work
There are no statutory fair dealing exceptions for quoting from unpublished material, including others’ unpublished dissertations/theses. Which means that you may not use quotations from unpublished works, including for the fair dealing purpose of criticism or review, without the permission of the copyright owner.
Also, unpublished works often have longer terms of copyright than other materials, most in the UK are in-copyright until the end of the calendar year 2039. - Photographs, images of artwork, film/television/video clips and stills
Obtaining formal written permission is strongly advised.
If using your own photographs or videos, you need to obtain consent from individuals who feature in your photographs or videos, and from owners/copyright holders or images/objects such as artwork in your photographs or videos, and from location owners for your photography or filming on their property. - Figures, illustrations, charts and tables, maps
The owner of copyright in an image or figure may be unrelated to that of the article or other source it appears in, so establish the copyright owner or holder by checking the credit/acknowledgements line.
Exact reproduction of a previously published figure requires permission, unless it is covered by terms that explicitly allow this (see preceding section under Extracts from material licensed/released by its copyright owner on terms that explicitly allow your intended re-use without making specific permission requests).
Permission is required from the copyright holder if you are adapting or redrawing a previously published figure, e.g. copying the figure and replacing some data.
Redrawing a previously published figure entirely, i.e. creating a new and unique figure with new data, does not require permission. Any source data or factual information must be credited.
If it is difficult to assess whether your use is an adaptation or a new figure, the default position must be that if you begin with a figure from another publication, it is an adaptation and permission must be obtained. - Sound/music recordings/sheet music
- Trademarks, e.g. logos.
- Brand images, advertisements/publicity material
- Sources found on the Internet
You need to be careful when contemplating use of images or other material found online. Almost all material on the Internet and in social media is protected by copyright, including content obtained from websites, blog posts, Google Images, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Often images and other material are posted without the knowledge or permission of the copyright owner.
Ignorance of copyright offers no defence against unauthorised use of copyright material and taking down offending material upon notice from copyright owners is almost always insufficient to forestall payment to the copyright owner of a licence fee for use of the content and a penalty fee for the unauthorised use or incurring legal action to do so.
So, if in doubt, seek permission, or provide a link to the material ensuring that you acknowledge the source of the link. - Reproducing your journal articles - Your publisher may allow pre-prints or post-prints or re-publishing/re-use after specific embargo periods. Should you not have your publishing agreement to hand, you will need to check with your publisher to confirm any terms that apply to use of the whole or large extracts from your article in your dissertation, i.e. beyond short ‘fair dealing’ quotations. Sherpa Romeo outlines author re-use permitted by major journal publishers.
In any case, if your previously published material contained extracts from other sources, e.g. figures, illustrations, tables or charts, you may need to obtain permissions from the copyright owners to reproduce those items in your online dissertation/thesis.
Obtaining permission
Seeking permission from copyright owners to reproduce their work in your dissertation/thesis is a relatively uncomplicated process, but it can take some time, so if you wish to or need to make your dissertation available in the Apollo Repository or online elsewhere you are urged to start with the “rights clearance” process as soon as you can:
1. Identify the copyright owner or holder
First, you need to identify the copyright owner of the work you are including in your dissertation/thesis, which is usually identified by the © symbol with the copyright owner’s name next to it.
You will often find this at the beginning of a book, alongside or below a photograph, or at the footer of a website, or at the end of a film.
If the copyright owner or holder is a commercial publisher or an academic journal, the quickest way of securing permission is to use the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service.
Journals often provide links to CCC’s RightsLink service directly from the journal article page under ‘Permissions’ or ‘RightsLink’ information.
If the publisher or academic journal does not offer permission through the CCC or its RightsLink service, you need to check the publisher’s or academic journal’s website under ‘Permissions’ or ‘Rights and Permissions’ or ‘Copyright’ or ‘Contact Us’ or similar to find the publisher’s or academic journal’s preferred method of dealing with permissions requests. Some publishers may provide an online permissions request form.
If the copyright owner or holder is an individual or organisation that offers permissions information but does not appear to use any collective copyright licensing broker such as CCC or its RightsLink service or have its own online form, you need to email or write to the individual or organisation, explaining why you wish to use their work and request permission.
For this purpose you may use the suggested Permission to Use Copyright Material in a Dissertation (geared toward deposit in the Apollo Repository) or adapt the information provided in the form.
2. If permission is granted, i.e. citation/acknowledgement/credit lines
Permission may come in the form of a letter or e-mail from the publisher and/or copyright owner or it may be in the form of a licence agreement. If the copyright owner has proposed a licence that covers what you need and if you are willing to pay the fee that is requested, then you will be able to use the material in the manner stipulated by the terms of the licence agreement.
Always keep on file any correspondence or written permission or licence as proof of permission.
You must include full citations for all copyright material in your dissertation regardless of author or source.
Follow the citation guidelines for your field or discipline, e.g. APA, Harvard, Chicago, MHRA – Cambridge Libraries, Reference Management provides referencing advice.
At a minimum any quoted or reproduced material must be provided with a source, naming the copyright owner of the work (who may or may not be the author or creator), its title, and other information such as specific page or other relevant references that will allow the reader to trace the work and verify the quotation.
Copyright acknowledgements should appear next to the item reproduced. Copyright holders often make the position and wording of the acknowledgement a condition of granting permission, so their requirements should be followed carefully.
If you have adapted or modified another’s work with their permission, they will have supplied you with their prescribed credit notice, but in any case, the source credit should include the author/title of the original figure and that the material has been adapted with permission, e.g. “Adapted from…” and “Reproduced with the permission of…”.
All Creative Commons (CC) Licences require the user to attribute the copyright owner/author/creator of the work being used, but how that attribution can be provided is flexible depending on the type of licence and the medium in which the work is being used. Depending on where the image will be used different citation formats are necessary to convey all the required information, but in any case, all CC attributions should have the same basic information
- Title of the work
- Author/Creator name
- Source of the image (usually in the form of a URL to source page)
- CC licence information (including a link back to CC documentation page if possible).
Detailed guides on attributing CC licensed material:
Marking your work with a CC Licence, Creative Commons wiki
Best practices for attribution, Creative Commons wiki
Attributing CC Materials, Creative Commons Australia
If you are licensing your work under a Creative Commons Licence, it is unlikely the copyright owner of third party material you wish to include in your work will give you permission for their material to be released to the world under the Creative Commons Licence that you have chosen for your own work. However, if they have done so and you have marked their work with a credit line as they have prescribed, e.g. “all rights reserved”, to ensure that end-users are aware of any distinction between the permission/licence you have been granted and the terms of the Creative Commons Licence you have chosen to release your work under, mark the licensed item as prescribed and preface your release under a CC Licence with the wording ‘Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons [ ] Licence.
3. What if permission is granted, i.e. citation/acknowledgement/credit lines
You must include full citations for all copyright material in your dissertation/thesis regardless of author or source.
The citation guidelines you are following for your dissertation/thesis in your field or discipline will lead you but at a minimum each citation must include the copyright symbol © or Copyright, the name of the copyright owner (who may or may not be the author or creator), and specific page or other relevant references.
Cambridge Libraries, Reference Management provides referencing advice.
If you have adapted or modified another’s work with their permission, the source credit should include the author/title of the original figure and that the material has been adapted with permission, e.g. “Adapted from…” and “Reproduced with the permission of…”.
If you are licensing your dissertation/thesis under a Creative Commons Licence, with third party source material you may have included in your dissertation/thesis licensed to you and the Apollo Repository for release in Apollo, it is unlikely the copyright owner giving you permission would wish for their material to be released to the world under the Creative Commons Licence you have chosen for your own work. To ensure that end-users are aware of this distinction, your release under a CC Licence should be prefaced by the wording ‘Except where otherwise noted, this dissertation is licensed under a Creative Commons [ ] Licence.
4. What if permission is not granted
Trite, but for upload of your dissertation/thesis online, in the Apollo Repository or elsewhere, your dissertation/thesis should be as complete as possible. Removal of material for copyright reasons is only acceptable if you are refused permission by the copyright owner, if a fee is levied for your use of the material, or the copyright owner has not replied to your permission request despite your diligent efforts.
Copyright owners/holders do have the right to say no to your permission request. Also, if you do not receive a reply to your permission request you cannot presume that you may use the material. It is very important to keep a record of all attempts made to gain permission. If your permission request is ultimately unsuccessful you should remove the material from your work and seek to replace it with a suitable and licensable work, or reassess whether you can use extracts from the work or another suitable work under one of the copyright exceptions such as fair dealing for the purpose of quotation.
If you have removed copyright material from your dissertation and replacement is not feasible, the following statement should be included in the area that material will have been placed in the dissertation: “This material has been removed due to copyright restrictions.”
In addition, to assist the reader you should include a description of the removed material and the information it contained, plus the URL of the source if publicly available online, and a full citation of the original source.
5. Keeping a permissions log
As you work on gaining copyright permissions you should:
- Maintain a log that records your permission requests to the copyright holders and precise details of the rights granted
- Keep a file of correspondence to and from copyright holders
- Record fees due and paid
- Keep a list of the copyright lines or credits requested by copyright holders
6. Different versions of your dissertation/thesis for copyright reasons and ‘restricted access’
If you have worked through the rights clearance exercise described above, versions of your dissertation/thesis may differ depending on the level of the clearance achieved, e.g. you may end with - a print hard copy version that has relied on the fair dealing exemption of illustration for instruction to include others’ copyright material, and; if you choose to or are obliged to make the electronic version available in the Apollo Repository or online elsewhere, a version with all copyright items cleared (or some removed and marked “This material has been removed due to copyright restrictions”).
However, the submission of print hard copy and digital copies of your dissertation/thesis and taking care of the copyright ‘rights clearance’ situation is not to be confused with an application to restrict access to your dissertation/thesis for a specified time and reason.
You may request for access to your dissertation/thesis to be restricted for a specified period of time) should your dissertation/thesis, for example (based on Freedom of Information Act (FOI) exemptions), contain confidential or sensitive material (e.g. patient data, data obtained by interview, that if disclosed could potentially lead to harm to individuals), or contain information that if made freely available may invalidate an application for a patent, or contain information that would breach a provision of an agreement with an outside body or sponsor, or be due shortly for commercial publication.
Any restriction granted means that neither the print hard copy nor the electronic version of your dissertation/thesis may be made available to the public in the University Library or in the Apollo Repository or elsewhere, or if restricted access is granted for certain parts only, only versions with redacted ‘restricted access’ sections will be made available.
If you choose to or are under an obligation by a funder or a sponsor of your studies or your Faculty/Department to make your dissertation/thesis available online, which means you publish it, anyone accessing your dissertation is bound to either comply with copyright’s default end user ‘All rights reserved’ terms, or if you choose to or are obliged to release your dissertation/thesis under one of the Creative Commons Licences, the terms of the chosen CC Licence.
An ‘All rights reserved’ release of your dissertation/thesis online allows users to make a single copy of your dissertation/thesis for their private study and non-commercial research and to use short ‘fair dealing’ extracts such as quotes from your paper in accordance with copyright law.
On the other hand, a release by any of the Creative Commons Licences allows copies of the whole of the dissertation/thesis to be made available elsewhere, including online, but only for the uses permitted under the specific Creative Commons Licence you may choose or are obliged to release your dissertation under.
The University’s Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC) provides guidance on open scholarly publishing, including how to make your dissertation/thesis and research available open access:
(See further: "What are the Creative Commons Licences?")
To note, should you wish to publish your dissertation/thesis with a third party commercial publisher, any permissions obtained from copyright owners to include their material in your dissertation/thesis for availability online will need to be reobtained for use within a commercial publication (unless you ask for permission to do so in your original permission request). You will need to take permissions advice from your publisher, which may differ from the guidance provided here.