Copyright Licencing Agency - Collection of Royalties Data Exercise

The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) is conducting a remote data collection exercise regarding the photocopying and printing of published works. The University of St Andrews has been chosen to participate in the 2025-26 exercise, with a submission window between 19 January and 6 March 2026.

In short - each time you scan, copy or print copies of any copyrighted material during the above timeframe, you should complete an online form.

This exercise applies to all academic and non-academic staff who photocopy or scan any published material. Students are not required to participate.

Please get in touch with any queries via library@st-andrews.ac.uk

What's happening?

The University holds a Higher Education licence with the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) which enables staff and students within our institution to legally copy and share extracts from published copyright content, without having to seek permission or worry about infringing copyright. Libraries and Museums administers this license on behalf of the institution.

Periodically, the CLA require institutions to provide information about the type of published content they are re-using, for example, copy re-use of printed publications such as books, journals, periodicals, etc, as well as digital originals which are printed out and then on-copied. Data collected is used to help distribute royalty payments to the authors, publishers and visual artists whose work is being used.

What should I submit?

Relevant data may come from:

  • Books, magazines, journals, periodicals, etc. including extracts or line quotes. 
  • Copies of copies. 
  • Educational materials which contain multiple extracts such as learned/research journals/monographs and chapters from reference books, alongside lecturer prepared material.   These resources are sometimes known as study packs, readers, course packs, course handouts, course readings etc. though names may vary.  Packs should pertain to courses which form any part of the 2025-26 academic year, are course/module specific (as opposed to a particular term) and may be produced/distributed at any time.   This means that packs created during a previous year but which continue to be provided to students, should be included regardless of when the packs are actually given out.  
  • Copyright content transcribed and used in a printed resource such as a presentation or supporting handout. 
  • Copyright content captured on a mobile device and subsequently printed out and/or on-copied. 
  • Crown Copyright, unless published under OGL. (Some Government publications which receive private sector funding cannot be published under OGL.)  
  • Open resources and material from hybrid publications, where a mix of copyright and open access content is included (particularly in journals or other collections of work).   
  • Resources provided to non-credit bearing students covered by the HE licence; for  example, if undertaking professional or short courses. 
  • Resources used or provided by Professional Services, such as HR training handouts or press clippings used for marketing communications. 
  • On-copying from born digital material made under the CLA licence is subject to the same terms as a photocopy so should be included.  
  • Resources containing published content which are scanned to the VLE are excluded unless they have been omitted from the CLA digital reporting process.   
  • Copies made for personal use or private study are excluded.  

How do I submit?

Relevant copying activity should be captured using the online snap survey form. All staff will use the same page to record data, which is submitted anonymously. There are no usernames or passwords required.

A QR code and URL will be available by each printer/scanner. You can also copy and save the url to your browser, favourites or desktop https://tinyurl.com/643r76kr

There is currently an issue bookmarking the form, as some of the protective text is lost. If you wish to bookmark the form, we would recommend either bookmarking this page. You can also bookmark the as usual, then edit your bookmark and copy and paste the tiny url above, which should carry over the missing text. This issue is being looked at the CLA. 

Who should be submitting data?

This is a staff only exercise – students are not included, with the exception of post-graduates who are involved with teaching, group research projects, etc.

  • For academic departments we anticipate that data will come from academics themselves or anyone copying on their behalf. Other learning or research areas are also included.
  • Non-academic departments making copies of relevant publications are included.

Privacy information

Please note there is no personal data being requested during this exercise and that none should be added in the free text fields. For further information regarding how CLA and Snap Surveys handle your data please follow the links below.

FAQs

Further information including title search & excluded works, can be found at www.cla.co.uk   

Please get in touch with any queries via library@st-andrews.ac.uk