Q. What permissions are needed to use third party materials for educational purposes?

The University's ERA+  (Educational Recording Agency) licence allows the recording of television and radio broadcast material for educational purposes and enables these recordings to be accessed by students whether on the premises or in any other location within the UK.  The recording can be shown during a lecture/class and can also be used in PowerPoint presentations and may be placed on CANVAS

A written record needs to be kept of all copying carried out under the ERA licence. The record needs to include the following;

• Title of the programme recorded;
• Where the recording is kept;
• Who made the recording;
• How many copies of the recording were made.

All ERA recordings must be clearly labelled.  You need to make sure that if you make an off-air recording under the terms of the licence that you label the outer case and disc itself with the following;

• Date (when the recording was made)
• Name of the broadcaster
• Programme title
• The wording:  This recording is to be used only for educational purposes and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence.

In the case of digital recordings stored on server CANVAS include the above required details as a written opening credit or webpage, which must be viewed or listened to before access to the recording is permitted.

However, if you make a recording using the online service Box of Broadcasts, BoB, you do not need to worry about ERA notices or record keeping as BoB will take care of this for you. 

For more information please visit ERA.

No, PDFs must be copyright cleared before uploading them into CANVAS. Please use the Library's Digitisation Service to ensure that the PDFs you use in your teaching materials are copyright cleared and compliant.

If you're unsure whether the PDFs you have uploaded are copyright compliant, please contact the a member of the Library's Digitisation Team to check your resources for you and offer advice and support.

The University has a takedown policy: If any person becomes aware that any defamatory, inaccurate or copyright infringing material is included within CANVAS or any other reason why it would be expedient for the University to remove the materials whilst an investigation is undertaken by the Head of Department, they must contact the University Computing Services Department immediately.

The University of Liverpool holds a licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA), which allows members of the University to scan extracts from copyright works in order to support teaching and learning.

But we have to comply with the terms of the licence, which involves filling in a copyright form for each item uploaded to CANVAS, details below.

If you are referring students to a journal article and the University subscribes to the journal electronically, simply make a link from VITAL to the article on the journal’s website. No forms need to be filled and usage of the journal shows up on the library’s usage statistics.

If you currently use Reading Lists@ Liverpool then it may be more convenient for you to use our Digitisation Service – find out more below. If you do not currently use Reading Lists @ Liverpool but would like to use our Digitisation Service then please contact your Liaison Librarian or use the online request form.

Help is always available from your Liaison Librarian or the Library’s Licensing Manager tel. 0151 795 8767.

Please note: the distribution of scanned extracts of copyright protected material without either having first secured the rights owner's permission or having fully complied with the terms of the CLA HE Licence, might expose both the individual responsible and the University of Liverpool to charges of infringing copyright legislation which may lead to you having to take down/remove the work and lead to reputational damage to the University.

If your lecture includes material whose copyright is owned by third-parties, it is the responsibility of each staff member not to infringe the intellectual property rights of these third-parties when they are used in lectures.

If lectures contain such material, to avoid risk, either a copyright exception, a licence, or direct permission to use the work must apply to use the materials legitimately. If any of these do not apply, alternatively the work must have been made available to use by it being out of copyright, the waiving of copyright or via Creative Commons license. Attribution should be made.

In short, third-party materials may require permission for use/inclusion, unless one of the following statutory copyright exceptions applies:

Permission to Use Third-Party Materials using Copyright Exceptions for Education:

• The material is included solely to illustrate a point;
• The material is included for the purpose of criticism or review;
• The material is being used for quotation;
• The material is included for the purpose of caricature, parody or pastiche;

For ANY of the above copyright exceptions to be applied, the use of the material must ALSO come under the concept of ‘fair-dealing’ i.e.

• The amount of the material used must be reasonable and appropriate to the specific purpose - usually only part of a work may be used.

• Use of the material must not interfere with the commercial interests of the rights holder
• The material must not be used for commercial purposes;
• The material must be accompanied by a sufficient acknowledgement/attribution;

Permission to include third-party materials under Licence:

• The material has been copyright-cleared and scanned under the CLA Licence and reported to the Library by either completing a Copyright Notice, or requesting Digitisation via Reading Lists @ Liverpool.
• Any material from an electronic source is being used under the terms and conditions of the website or the publisher’s licence.
• Film and sound recordings used under ERA license or material from Box of Broadcasts – only to be accessible within the UK.
• Other permissions to include Third-Party Materials:
• The material is available under an open licence such as Creative Commons.
• The material is out of copyright (usually 70 years after the death of the creator).
• Permission has been granted in writing for such reuse by the rights holder.