Copyright compliance
The information included on this page is taken from the University found by clicking on the link above.
Ownership and protection of lecture materials
Who owns lecture materials?
(a) Copyright ownership of lecture notes/teaching materials
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Regulation 7 of the University’s Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy: “Copyright and related rights in material created by a University staff member in the course of their employment by the University belong to that University staff member. This means that University staff members own the copyright in their original teaching materials, including the lecture notes they author for teaching purposes at the University.” https://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/univ/so/2018/chapter13-section2.html |
In other words, the underlying copyrights of the lecturer, in their own original material included in their lecture, remain with the lecturer. Copyrights in extracts of others’ (third party) copyright material included by a lecturer in their lecture remain with the materials’ respective copyright owners.
(b) Licence for the University to use lecture notes/teaching materials
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Regulation 30 of the University’s IPR Policy: “In relation to teaching materials prepared by a University staff member for use in the teaching primarily of the University’s students, unless the Faculty Board or other body responsible for teaching has agreed explicitly to the contrary, the University shall have a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual licence to use the material for teaching at the University.” |
How do I protect my lecture materials?
(a) Include a copyright notice on your lecture notes and teaching materials
Although not required to assert copyright in original works, the traditional copyright symbol © and author assertion of copyright provides a form of notice of copyright ownership:
Copyright © [year(s) of creation] [name of author], and others as identified. All rights reserved.
[If you have no issue with students releasing your original lecture material online and wish to release your material under one of the Creative Commons (CC) Licences described at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ , replace ‘All rights reserved’ with the specific CC Licence identifier].
(b) Include a general copyright material warning notice
- To be used by lecturers at the start of lectures to serve as a reminder to students not to make unauthorised copies or to distribute their material. This statement can be used independently or in conjunction with information provided as part of the University’s lecture capture service, where applicable.
- Students are notified that lecture content is copyrighted material, owned by [lecturer name], who retains copyright in lecturer-authored content. There may also be third parties who own copyright in material which may be included in the content.
- Copies may not be made without the formal consent of [lecturer name] and third parties (as applicable); this includes audio recordings of the lecture as well as all accompanying material, presented both during, in advance of and following the lecture. Students recording for reasonable adjustments are welcome to do so and are reminded that the terms of their signed agreement to record apply.
- Failure to comply with the terms of this warning may result in disciplinary action by the University and legal claims for copyright infringement.
(c) Fully cite any third-party material you may have included in your course material, to make it clear that the material so marked is not your own work and may not be redistributed without further permission from copyright owners. .
Are students allowed to record my lectures?
- 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.
- 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 Disability Resource Centre. Lecturers are obliged to permit a student to record if this is recommended in the student’s SSD.
- 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.
