How Can I Use Copyrighted Work?

What use you can make of other people’s work depends upon its copyright status:

If a work is in the public domain, you are free to reproduce, distribute and adapt it. Thus for instance you can freely reproduce the text of a Shakespeare play. However, the specific layout of a work may still be under the publisher’s copyright, so you can’t necessarily reproduce that. In all cases, you should make sure to cite work correctly and give appropriate credit.
Some material is made available under a copyright licence. Holders of this licence are given the right to copy or broadcast a certain amount of a copyrighted work which they own a copy of, but they must not go beyond the bounds of what the licence allows. Ulster University holds a CLA copyright licence and an ERA copyright licence. The former allows staff and students to scan and photocopy from books the library owns which are under the CLA licence; the latter allows us to broadcast TV and film recordings for educational purposes only. These licences are the main way we make use of copyrighted work.
There are a number of limited exceptions to copyright law, which permit people to make use of copyrighted works without permission from the holder. Several of these apply to teaching and research.
Some copyrighted material may be utilised by receiving permission from the copyright holder. There are two main ways that this can happen.
- The first is if the copyright holder makes the work available through an open licence, such as an Open Government Licence or a Creative Commons Licence. These licences allow others to reproduce and sometimes to adapt the work but impose certain conditions on people wishing to do so.
- The second is if the copyright holder is contacted directly and gives explicit permission for the work to be utilised in the intended manner. This can be a time-consuming process and we would ordinarily suggest that you only try this if it is not possible to make use of the work through a licence or a copyright exception.