Understanding copyright - keep it legal!
All types of copying and printing are subject to copyright law. It is your responsibility to ensure you do not copy more than you are legally entitled to.
The Copyright Act prohibits multiple copying but allows you to make a single copy for personal study purposes - the following limits also generally apply:
- Books: no more than one chapter or 5% of the whole work.
- Journal articles: only one article from any one issue of the journal.
- Ordnance Survey Maps: up to 4 copies A4 size at the original scale
- Images
- FAQs: websites, exam papers, audiovisual materials, books, journals...
Further information (for staff)
- Copyright Licencing Agency (CLA): non-profit-making company that licenses organisations for photocopying & scanning - provides details of license permissions & restrictions
- Scanning for Moodle & related copyright issues: the Library is responsible for scanning and providing links to articles & chapters for you to make available
- Short Loan items: if you would like offprints/study packs to be placed in the Short Loan collection, please contact your subject librarian for guidelines on permissible copying & rapid copyright clearance
Using Opus (authors' rights & depositing papers)
- When you sign a publisher Copyright Transfer Agreement, this may limit what you can do with your research e.g. determine whether/how you can make it available in Opus, the University's Publications Repository which makes work publically available via the Internet
- Please check the Copyright & Licenses Guide before you sign your publisher’s copyright agreement or licence: for more information, contact Kara Jones, the Research Publications Librarian
- General information about Opus and Copyright regulations: depositing papers in Opus