If you are uncertain about whether or how you can use a resource in your teaching or research, it might be helpful to work through this list of "routes to use" systematically and see if any of them apply. There are four routes:
Although all works are implicitly protected by copyright when produced, the copyright does not last forever, and works that are out of copyright can be copied and distributed in full. In the UK, the term of copyright varies according to the material:
Some care is needed here though: if a work has been subject to editing or translating, then the editor or translator would own the copyright to the work they have done, so (at least parts of) the text of a recent Penguin edition of Charles Dickens might not be out of copyright (note also the copyright duration for the typography).
For more information see the Copyright User website, the UK Government's Copyright Notice on duration of copyright, and the Copyright Legislation.
Many resources are now made available with explicit permission for others to copy and re-use them. The most common way that this is done is through Creative Commons Licenses, although it can also be done by a simple statement on the resource. Although unlikely to be practicable in most cases, you could also contact the rights holder to ask for permission to re-use the work.
If you are using a resource under a permission, then you must follow the terms of the permission exactly, otherwise you will be in breach of copyright.
See our guidance about Creative Commons Licenses on the Copyright for Students LibGuide.
The University holds several copyright licences that can allow you to use resources in teaching and research. For copying whole chapters from books or articles from a journal or magazine, the CLA licence will often be useful.
The licence covers textual and still images in books, journals, conference proceedings and magazines. Note that newspapers are covered by the NLA licence instead.
If a book, journal, or magazine is published in the UK, either in print or online, then it is likely that we will be able to copy from it under the licence. If the publisher is based overseas, then we may still be able to copy from it under the CLA licence.
The Library does not necessarily have to own a copy of the work to scan a part of it. We will normally try to buy content on a reading list, but where this is not feasible we may instead choose to pay a copyright fee to obtain a digital copy of the relevant chapter or article.
The CLA provide a Check Permissions tool to enable us to check whether a resource is covered by their licence.
The total amount of copying for a single module or individual is limited to whichever is the greater of:
If you are copying for personal use - your research or study - then you can make the copies, whether physical or digital, yourself.
If you want to use a digital copy in your teaching - to provide the copy to your students - then the copying must be done by Solent Library's Digidocs service.
Other Licences
Copying from newspapers is covered by the NLA licence; broadcasts are covered by ERA licence.
The copyright legislation that protects works from being copied contains some exceptions, where copying is allowed under certain conditions. For using small extracts of a work, e.g., when quoting in a paper or discussing a key passage in class, a copyright exception will often be the simplest way to legitimately copy a resource. The exceptions might also apply for more extensive uses, though this will often involve greater risk and should be viewed as a last resort and taken with caution.
The exceptions most likely to be relevant to your teaching and research are summarised below. Please click the links for further information.