When you share copyright material such as readings, videos and sound recording, with students, these materials need to be covered by either :

• A licence

• An exception to copyright

Several exceptions exist to allow copyright work to be used for educational purposes

• You can copy work in any medium as long as the use is solely to illustrate a point and the use is fair dealing. The illustration for instruction exception includes the setting of examination questions, communicating the questions to students and answering the questions. Your use of this exception must be fair and you must provide sufficient acknowledgement.  

• You can perform, play or show copyright works for educational purposes provided that the audience is limited to  lecturers, students or other persons directly connected with activities of the University for the purposes of instruction.

• You can record a television programme or radio broadcast for educational purposes if there is no licence in place. Please note that  the university subscribes to the ERA licence which allows UK University of Sussex staff and students to record and access broadcast television programmes through Box of Broadcast

• Non-commercial research or private study

• The library can organise the provision of material in an accessible format on behalf of a student with a disability. 

Sharing course materials.

Teaching slides. Ensure that you properly credit any images, text or musical quotations you use in your teaching materials. You need to do this regardless of whether you are relying on a licence or on a copyright exception. 

E-resources. The online reading list system should be used to share links to ebooks and journal articles; even though you have access to resources through our subscriptions, it does not mean that you have permission to copy and distribute resources. For further information, please contact readinglists.bib@sussex.ac.uk

Scans from books and journals. The Library's Reading List  team will create a licensed digital copy and link it to your reading list; they will ensure that it complies with the CLA Licence terms 

• 1 whole chapter from a book, or 10% of the total pages

• 1 articles or 10% of the total pages from a  journal issue or set of conference proceedings

• 1 whole scene from a play

• 1 whole report of a single case from a volume of judicial proceedings

• 1 short story, poem or play (max. 10 pages) or 10% of the total pages from an anthology

No scans should be made available to students outside of our online reading list platform. For further information, contact readinglists.lib@sussex.ac.uk

UK film and radio broadcasts.  The ERA Licence covers most UK free-to-air TV channels and radio stations and permits university staff and students to record live television and radio broadcasts (including broadcast feature films) to be used for educational purposes. The most convenient way of using the ERA licence to provide access to broadcast material is to use Box of Broadcasts to stream, request and share recordings.  

Open Educational Resources

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are typically released with Creative Commons licences that allow the copyright owner to authorise others to share their works free of charge, permission may also be given to adapt and or commercialise a work. The OER Commons is a public digital library of open educational resources and the Open Textbook Library is a collection of textbooks which are licensed by authors and publishers to be freely used and adapted.