This section provides information and guidance to students on copyright law. Throughout your course of study you will want to access, resources, download content and reuse it for your assignments. Fortunately, copyright law recognises the need for you to do this, and makes provision under 'fair dealing' for non-commercial research and private study.
Fair dealing relates to exceptions that can be made to using copyrighted information, but requires that you only copy 'as much of a work as is necessary for the purpose' and that copying 'must not impact on rights holders' legitimate ownership of their work'.
The 'fair dealing' section of UK copyright law permits you to copy extracts from sound recordings, films and broadcasts as well as literary, dramatic and musical works for private study or non-commercial research purposes. All types of copyright are covered and acknowledgement of the source must be provided.
Creative Commons is a non-profit organisation that assists authors and creators who want to share their work, by providing free copyright licences and tools.
Creative Commons licences are not an alternative to copyright. They work alongside copyright and enable you to modify your copyright terms to best suit your needs.
There are several different Creative Commons licenses with different permissions attached. For example, a CC BY license is very open and only requires that you credit the original creator, whereas a CC BY-NC license does not allow commercial use.
To better understand what each license allows you to do, take a look at this infographic.
All disabled people are now covered by the legislation where their impairment affects their ability to study or work on an equal basis as someone without impairment. This means that all materials can now be altered to an alternate appropriate format as long as an appropriate format copy is not already commercially available to the student. Alternative formats might include:
This alternative formats can be made by the student or a recognised student helper. It is also possible to request copies from the Library and Learning Services team. These may also be requested as part of the reasonable adjustment processes worked through with our Student Services Colleagues. Further information on requesting accessible copies can be found in our guide on Specialist Study Support.
The law allows you to make copies of work to include in your assessments and exams. You must always ensure that you include appropriate acknowledgement, which will also ensure you avoid any potential risk of plagiarism.
This exception, however, does not permit you to make your work available online or in print. To do this, you must seek permission from the rights holder to reproduce their work in your publication.