Intellectual Property Rights and copyright> Licensing

Copyright licences allow all types of organisations to photocopy and scan extracts from magazines, books and journals. Organisations can apply for the appropriate licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA), the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA), the Educational Recording Agency (ERA) or Ordnance Survey (OS), and in return for a yearly fee, blanket copyright clearance is granted to copy works. Obtaining a licence reduces the risk of copyright infringement. There are a number of different licences available, depending on your organisation and your copying needs.

Inter-library loans/document supply and copyright

Libraries and information centres may lend materials to, or borrow from, third parties. Copyright affects both these actions.

Borrowing/Requesting a Copy

If a library or other information service does not hold an item a customer needs, they would need to either borrow the item or request a photocopy from elsewhere. Many organisations, especially academic institutions, have accounts with the British Library Document Supply Services, which provides loans and copies of documents either electronically or by post. These services are still subject to terms and conditions associated with the provision of the document, e.g., a copy can only be used for non-commercial use or private study, and it cannot be re-distributed. The end user must sign a Copyright Declaration Form [in PDF format] for each copy supplied, which states that they are not knowingly infringing copyright.

It is also possible to obtain copyright cleared articles from the British Library Document Supply Service to put on an academic institution's Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), as long as access to the material is password protected. See also the CLA HE Trial Scanning Licence section below.

More information on Electronic materials and copyright.

Lending/Copying

The Copyright Licensing Agency makes available two copyright licences for organisations that copy material for third parties. These are:

• low volume document delivery licence; and
• transactional document delivery licence.

Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) HE Trial Scanning Licence

The CLA has created a HE trial licence to allow academic institutions to scan printed materials for use in their VLEs. This licence does NOT permit copying of digital materials. This licence is in a trial phase, so it is particularly important to keep records of what has been requested for scanning. The CLA conducts a compliance audit of a sample number of participating Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). The CLA provides a Compliance Audit FAQ [PDF format].

There are several points to note with regards to the licence.

• In order to scan an item the HEI must own a copy of the original work or obtain a copyright cleared copy, e.g. from the British Library Document Supply Centre.
• The proportion of an item which may be scanned is the same as that which may be copied under fair dealing.
• Materials excluded from the licence include all items not published in the UK and certain specific works and categories of works such as maps, charts, examination papers and newspapers.
• A request for a scanned item must be re-submitted each year.
• A separate request must be made for each individual class of students on a course.
• Only designated people at the HEI may scan material.

Copyright licensing resources