Electronic Copyright
August 2005 (v6)
This aims to clarify the situation regarding copyright of 'intellectual property' held or produced in electronic form, both other people's material and your own.
See also:
Code of Practice for the publishing of information in electronic form
Code of Practice for the use of World Wide Web systems in the University
New licence for digitising copyright material for teaching purposes
Using other people's material
Some users are considering writing computer-based teaching material (courseware) incorporating text from books which are still under copyright. Most publications are now protected by copyright against unauthorised copying for 70 years after the author's death and for 25 years after the date of publication.
Do you use a photocopier or scanner?
Almost certainly, you do: and you will be aware that photocopying can be done only within strict limits - either single copies within the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988), or multiple copying within the terms of the present agreement between the University and the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA).
The agreement with the CLA does not extend to general electronic copying (or electrocopying, as it has been termed). Electrocopying describes the process of copying printed material into electronic storage (for instance a computer file) - by scanning or any other process, including typing - so that it is stored in either image or character-encoded form, from which it can be reproduced either on a screen or by a printer.
There is now in place a limited agreement with the CLA, allowing the electrocopying of material held within the University Library, by Library staff, for teaching purposes within specific on-line courses. Please note that this agreement does not cover copying of personally-owned material or copying by non-Library personnel or copying for unrestricted on-line access.
For all other uses and circumstances, the copyright restriction remains as follows:
- If you intend to make any electronic copy of copyright material (for instance, for use in a computer-based course or in your research), you must obtain prior written permission from the publishers of that material.
In our experience, most publishers (even non-academic publishers) are quite willing to grant permission for such use, either at no cost or on payment of a very reasonable fee.
- You should note that any permission granted is for a specific act of copying - not a licence to copy in the future.
- It is illegal to scan copyright material (either texts or pictures) without written permission from the publishers.
What about copyright on my material?
If you write your own material, it is automatically protected by copyright, whether or not this is stated explicitly. However there are some important points which need to be borne in mind, especially when publishing material in computer-readable form, either on the Internet (via e-mail or World Wide Web pages), or in some other electronic form (for instance on CD-ROM):
You may not own the copyright!
- If you produce material as part of your work as an employee of the University, or under external funding contract, then the copyright of that material generally belongs to the employer, and not (only) to yourself. This may have implications for your freedom to publish your material in electronic form.[The matter of intellectual property rights is currently under review by the University.]
- If you publish a paper in a journal, then ownership is liable to be at least jointly with the owners of that publication, and so you are not necessarily free to republish your paper electronically (on the Internet for example) without permission from the journal's owners.
Protection of your own copyright
- If you publish material on the Internet (usually via the World Wide Web), then you must remember that you are publishing and you are publishing world-wide.
- If you intend to use your own material which would have some significant value to other people, then you need to consider your own copyright and what would be meant by other people copying your material. It is all very well to claim copyright, but it is another thing to protect it!
You can restrict access to your web pages; see on-line information web course material.
Further information
Advice on copyright may be obtained from the University's copyright advisor (e-mail copyright).