Copyright Exceptions

Copyright law contains a number of exceptions, which allow users to reproduce copyrighted material without purchasing a licence or seeking permission from the copyright holder. Each of these exceptions is defined in law and has particular conditions attached to it, which affect when it can be used and to what extent.

Two common conditions are that the use of the copyrighted work must be fair dealing and that the user must give sufficient acknowledgement.

Fair dealing means that the use the copyrighted work is being reproduced for is considered to be reasonable and does not unduly disadvantage the copyright holder. It should not be confused with fair use, which is an American concept that does not exist in UK law. Although there are similarities between fair use and fair dealing, they are not the same thing and if you see references to fair use, they are not talking about UK copyright law and cannot be relied upon.

There is no statutory definition of what is and is not fair dealing, but certain guidelines can be drawn from case law. Key considerations include:

• Whether the copyrighted work was lawfully obtained – use of a publicly available report is much more likely to be fair dealing than using private works which were obtained unethically

• Whether the use of the copyrighted work affects the market for the original work – if the use is likely to cause the owner of the copyrighted work to lose revenue, then it is not likely to be fair dealing

• Whether the amount of the copyrighted work that was used was reasonable and proportionate – the more of a work that is used, the less likely it is to be fair dealing.

Sufficient acknowledgement means that you acknowledge the creator of the work you are reproducing, unless doing so would be impractical. Examples of impracticability include if would take an unreasonable amount of work to identify the creator, or if the work is being used in an exam question where revealing the creator might give away the correct answer.

Wherever it is practical, you should acknowledge the author of the work you are using. Ways to do this include citing the copyrighted work correctly, mentioning it in your methodology and labelling slides appropriately.

There are a large number of copyright exceptions, some of which are quite specialised. The following exceptions to copyright are likely to be of use in an academic context:

This exception allows anybody studying to copy limited extracts of copyrighted works to facilitate research. Such copying must not have a financial impact on the copyright owner (in other words, it must not be enough to deny them a sale) and it must be fair dealing. This is often interpreted as meaning that you can copy up to 10% of a work, but this is not an absolute rule and any such copying is done at the copier’s own risk. In practice, most copying for research will be done using the university’s CLA licence rather than relying upon this exception.

Any work you reproduce must have sufficient acknowledgement of the author. If the purpose of the research is directly or indirectly commercial, this exception cannot be used.

You may copy data in order to carry out lexical analysis or other data mining activities. You must have ‘lawful access’ to the work that you are copying (meaning that if it is paywalled you or the university must have a subscription) and you cannot carry out data mining for commercial purposes without permission.

You may reproduce any copyrighted work for the purposes of criticism, review or quotation, provided that it is fair dealing. This means that brief passages can be quoted without seeking permission, but this may not apply if you wished to quote e. g. a large proportion of a poem.

You may also reproduce copyrighted work in order to report current events, but this exception does not apply to photographs. This is to protect the rights of photographers to sell their photographs to newspapers. In all cases, sufficient acknowledgement should be given.

Most use of copyrighted works for the purposes of teaching will be done under the university’s CLA and ERA licences. However, uses not covered by these licences may be covered by a copyright exception.

To qualify, the usage must be for the purposes of instruction (which includes answering student queries and setting examination questions); it must be fair dealing; and it must give sufficient acknowledgement (unless this is impractical.)

Educational establishments and charities are permitted to make, distribute and lend format-copies of copyrighted works in order to make them more accessible to disabled people. This can include:

• Making braille, audio or large-print copies of books and other written material for visually-impaired people

• Adding audio description to films or broadcasts for visually-impaired people

• Adding subtitles to film or broadcasts for deaf or hard-of-hearing people

• Making accessible copies of books and other written material for dyslexic people

This exception only applies when the following conditions are met:

• The work being copied is one that is lawfully accessed

• The copy is made by a disabled person or someone acting on their behalf

• The copy can only be made for the personal use of a disabled person

• The accessible copy must only change the copyrighted work to the extent that is necessary to make it accessible

• The making of the copy should be done on a non-profit basis, and no accessible version of the original work is commercially available.

The Library’s scanning service can assist with the production of accessible copies.

The exceptions listed above are the most likely to be of use in an academic context, but they are not the only ones. A full list of copyright exceptions is provided by the IPO.