Copyright for Teaching  Tags: copyright staff teaching academic_staff  

The amount of a work you may copy (without asking for the copyright holder’s permission) varies depending on the type of work. These amounts are summarised below. More detailed information is available from the Legal Services Web site.

These limits apply to material which can be obtained from booksellers at a reasonable price and within a reasonable timeframe. These limits apply to each unit (not each lecturer) during the unit’s teaching period.

Insubstantial portions

You may copy up to 2 pages of some types of work (see below), from a source work of up to 200 pages or 1 percent of a source work greater than 200 pages. If you copy an insubstantial portion from a work you must wait 14 days before copying from the same work again.

Books and literature

You may copy 10% of the pages in an edition of a book or one chapter, whichever is the greater number of pages. Each edition of a work is considered a separate work for the sake of copyright. You may therefore copy up to 10% from each edition of the work. The insubstantial portion rule applies to books and literature.

Anthologies

An anthology is a collection of individual smaller works, for example poems, short stories, or conference papers. So long as the individual work is less than 15 pages you may always copy all of it (even if the work is greater than 10% of the total pages in the anthology).

You can copy any number of works from an anthology, so long as the total amount copied is less than 10% of the total. Anthology allowances do not apply to a collection of musical works (see Sheet music, below). The insubstantial portion rule applies to anthologies.

Dramatic works

A dramatic work in this context is a written play or screenplay. You may copy up to 10% of the pages. The insubstantial portion rule applies to dramatic works.

Sheet music

You may copy up to 10% of a written musical work (often counted as 10% of the bars). This limit also applies to individual works in a collection of musical works. The insubstantial portion rule does not apply to sheet music.

Quotations

Quotations and short paragraphs from literary or dramatic works may be copied under the insubstantial portion rule.

Articles from print journals, newspapers or magazines

You may copy an entire article from one issue of the work. You can copy more than one article from an issue so long as the subject matter of the articles is the same.

Articles from online journals, newspapers or magazines

An online resource subscribed to by the Library, such as a journal, may impose its own limitations on how the resource can be copied and communicated for teaching purposes in its license terms and conditions. Do not copy from such a resource without consulting with the Library. It is much better to link to these articles if this is technically possible (see Linking to e-books or articles from online journals or newspapers, below).

The license may also place limitations on the personal use of the resource. In general it is permissible to print a reasonable number of articles, but downloading of articles to a local computer should be avoided.

Images, photos and other artistic works

An artistic work may be a photo, drawing, graph, table, or figure.

If you copy an artistic work which is included for the purpose of illustrating the text (e.g. a photo within a chapter of a book) then you may copy all of the artistic work.

If you wish to copy only the artistic work and exclude the text, and the artistic work has not been published separately, you may copy all of it. You can copy as many images from the work as you require provided that they have not been separately published.

If the artistic work has been published separately but cannot be obtained for a reasonable price within a reasonable timeframe, you may copy all of it.

See the section below for rules which apply to copying artistic works such as photos from online sources.

The insubstantial portion rule does not apply to artistic works.

Online material

Material placed online is considered “published” and therefore is not “copyright free”. Before copying material from any online source, check the site for a statement which defines how material on the site may be used. You should abide by this statement as with any “license”. If the site contains no permitted use statement or only contains a basic copyright statement then the Part VB allowances described above apply.

If the artistic work is copied from an electronic source such as a Web site, then you do not need to check whether it has been separately published. Providing that, to the best of your knowledge, the images are legitimate sources (i.e. not infringing copyright), and the Web site “license” does not prevent you from reproducing the material, then you may use any such image providing that you acknowledge the image’s source.

My own work

If you own the entire copyright for a piece of work, Part VB limitations do not apply and you may copy as much as you require. If you share copyright with another, you should seek their permission in writing. If you have published an article in a journal you may have signed over all or some of the reproduction rights to the publisher, which means Part VB limits (see Articles from print journals, newspapers or magazines, above) may apply and you should check your agreement.

Television and radio broadcasts

TV and radio broadcasts are covered by Part VA of the Copyright Act, not Part VB. See "Copying AV materials" to find out what you can copy and communicate under Part VA.

The limits described above are what are allowed under Part VB. If you wish to copy more than this you must seek permission from the copyright holder. The University Library can assist you to do this. Please contact your Subject Library.

Next >