Copyright : a practical guide

The University of Dundee holds the Copyright Licensing Agency's HE Licence, which entitles any member of staff to create and distribute copies of extracts from licensed works for course reading.  Our licence fee is used by the CLA to pay royalties to publishers and authors.

Licence-holders can make photocopies or digital copies (scans) from books and journals stocked by the Library, or print out/download extracts from e-resources subscribed to by the Library.  Scans are requested via the 'Request digitisation' option on Reading Lists.

The Licence sets a limit on the amount of a work which can be copied for any one module:

1 chapter from a book,

1 article from any issue of a journal, or

1 story/poem (max. 10 pages) from an anthology,

1 scene from a play

1 case report from judicial proceedings,

OR 10% of the total publication.

If you require more than these limits, please email the Digitisation Service with the details.

Under the terms of the licence, access to digital copies should be restricted to students on the module concerned - this is done via Reading Lists. A copyright notice is attached to each extract by the LLC digitisation team.

Digitisation Service for Module Leaders and Tutors 

LLC- Digitisation team will provide a digital copy for you with a copyright notice included linked to your reading list & MyDundee module.  Use the Request Digitisation link when editing your reading list.

Your request is automatically checked for compliance with the CLA Licence.  The Digitisation team also manage the CLA report.

If the extract you would like students to read comes from a text not stocked by the Library, the Digitisation team will purchase the original or a 'copyright-fee paid' digital copy from the British Library.  We can scan from a departmental copy of a work.

Schools are not charged for this service.

Not every publisher endorses the CLA to collect royalties on their behalf.  You can check whether the work you want to copy is covered by our CLA Licence:

• CLA Title Search

To make copies from work published outside the UK, check whether the CLA has a mandate in the jurisdiction concerned:

• CLA international territories

If the work you want to copy is unlicensed by the CLA, contact the Liaison Team or our copyright advisor to discuss alternative ways to help students access course reading.

The CLA Licence does not permit scanning from a print text when the Library has already purchased the work in e-format, unless the e-version is "technically unsuitable" for your purposes.  Use Library Search to identify ebooks & journals& add them to your reading list. If you feel that the ebook/journal is unsuitable contact the Digitisation team.

The Alternative Formats Service can provide any text in an accessible version for a reader who is unable to make use of the original.