Copyright compliance

Copyright Compliance for Lecturers & Instructors

The information included on this page is taken from the University found by clicking on the link above.

What Copyrighted Materials can be used in lectures?

Considering copyright, what material can be included in lectures?

From a copyright perspective, there are certain restrictions as to what can be included in lectures, either live or recorded. However, there are various types of content that can be included for illustrative purposes and because the University holds a Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) Higher Education Licence.

Infographic – what can be used in lectures?
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Short quotes and extracts – all types of copyright works, e.g. text, illustrations

‘Fair dealing’ for the purpose of ‘illustration for instruction’ permits lecturers to copy and display to students on the course of study brief or short extracts from literary, artistic and musical works, films, sound recordings and broadcasts, so long as:

 

  • the material is used to illustrate or reinforce a teaching point
  • only what is reasonably required to illustrate or reinforce a teaching point is copied and displayed
  • extracts from material provided under the illustration for instruction exception is limited to those students being instructed
  • the material made available must not be made available to the public, e.g. made available online in a website or repository or social media
  • original sources are cited unless to do so is impractical.
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Film and sound recordings – all types of copyright works, e.g. text, illustrations

  • A copyright exception in UK law permits you to show/play whole commercial films/DVDs and sound recordings/CDs during your live lectures.
  • However, the exception is not available if your lecture is being recorded, so only short clips that illustrate your teaching point (relying on the copyright exceptions of fair dealing ‘illustration for instruction’, or fair dealing for ‘criticism, review, quotation’) may be included in a lecture recording to be provided to your students in Moodle/VLE.
  • In practical terms, if your lecture is being recorded, you should pause the recording when a commercial film or sound recording is shown or played, or edit out any music, videos or films beyond short clips that illustrate a specific teaching point.
  • Where students need to watch a whole film or listen to whole sound recordings, you may direct them to a library copy they can borrow, or to a website where they can legally listen or watch or download a copy.
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a)     YouTube and other videos, website pages (short clips or extracts only if your lecture is recorded)
  • If a video is freely available on the open Internet and you do not suspect that the video is infringing or otherwise unlawful, then displaying it in a lecture is permitted, provided that the video is played live from the Internet rather than from a copy or download of the video. Similarly, displaying live website pages in your lecture is permitted.
b)     Television/radio broadcasts
  • The University’s Educational Recording Agency (ERA) Licence permits the recording of television and radio programmes and the showing/playing of those recordings to students and making the recordings available in Moodle in a password-protected intranet such as Moodle/VLE for student use.
c)     Creative Commons-licensed material etc.
  • You may use all types of copyright works, for example, reproducing extracts from a literary, artistic, dramatic or musical works, sound recordings or films provided they have been released by its copyright owner(s) under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY Licence), or a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial Licence (CC BY-NC Licence) or the UK Government’s Open Government Licence, or on website or other platform terms that permit reproduction for educational purposes (not only ‘personal and non-commercial use’).
d)     Material where the copyright owner has granted permission directly to you upon your request.
e)     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:

How do I cite copyright-protected material that I am (legally) using?

What about citing images?

It’s important to ensure that all copyright protected materials used for teaching are cited appropriately. This is relevant to all types of material – text, film, images, etc.

Infographic – How do I cite protected materials?
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Citing copyright-protected materials

  • Follow the citation guidelines for your field or discipline, e.g. APA, Harvard, Chicago, MHRA. Cambridge Libraries, LibGuides, Study Skills, Reference Management provides referencing advice.
  • In any case, cite at least the source of the material, e.g., the book title, journal title, article title, and if another type of copyright work, the name of the author/creator of the material.
  • For works from the Internet, including images, the source cited should include at least the URL, i.e., the web address, from where the content was retrieved and the name of the author/creator if available.
  • For materials that you are using with permission from the copyright owner, please include a statement something to the effect of “Used with permission from [Name of Copyright Holder]”in addition to attribution of the source, author/creator and title of the work. The copyright owner will mostly likely be the publisher or the author/creator of the work.
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Image citations in PowerPoint slides

  • Citing images used in PowerPoint slides and other course materials is part of providing “sufficient acknowledgement” of the title and author of a work authors/creators, as required by UK copyright law.
  • Generally, image citations should meet the same requirements as a text citation, i.e. a reader should be able to find the source of the image, and the image itself, based on the information in the citation.

Citations can be included:

    • Alongside each image, i.e. above, below or adjacent to the image, on the slide where the image appears, or on an ‘Image Reference List’ slide included in the slide presentation.  Note/number the images so they correspond with those referenced in the image reference list.
    • If all or most of the images are from the same source, you may include a statement at the start or end of your slides with wording to the effect: “Unless otherwise noted, all images in this presentation are from [source title and author/creator].”
    • If you include images such as photographs or diagrams that you created and for which you are the copyright holder, you may wish to include an attribution notice, e.g. © [Year image created, Author/Creator name].
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Other Content

Further information regarding the citation of material from any of the following sources can be found here: https://www.legal.admin.cam.ac.uk/copyright-compliance/lecturers-and-instructors

  • Citing images from websites, online image databases or licensed image databases
  • Citing images from print and electronic publications
  • Citing images licensed under Creative Commons Licences

 

Department of Biochemistry