Fair dealing fact sheet (Research Support Handy Guides)
An accessible guide to fair dealing and how it can be used
Useful website detailing copyright exceptions and how they can be used by students and researchers
So many shades of grey: using your judgment to answer copyright queries
Webinar outlining key copyright concepts including exceptions
This resource is licenced under a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence by Claire Sewell, the Office of Scholarly Communication, Cambridge University Libraries.
Copyright exceptions are certain actions which allow for the limited use of copyright materials without seeking express permission. These exceptions can only be used in defined circumstances such as using small portions of a work for private study or including an image for the purposes of criticism. The table below summarises the main copyright exceptions which researchers are likely to come across:
One area which often causes confusion for researchers is the definition of educational use. It is important to realise that educational exceptions only apply in certain circumstances such as teaching a defined course for a specific cohort of students. Many researchers confuse this with their desire to educate people more widely with their work - they think that because they are not sharing their work for commercial purposes then educational exceptions apply but this is not true. This distinction becomes especially relevant when it comes to the process of sharing theses online as this is a form of publication and therefore educational exceptions do not apply in the way they would have when the thesis was submitted for assessment. For more information on the range of copyright exceptions and how they can be applied, librarians should consult the excellent copyrightuser.org resource highlighted in the Learn More box.
One area often impacted by the confusion around exceptions is fair dealing. This is not actually an exception at all but a defense which can be relied on in court. It states that in some circumstances researchers may be allowed to use extracts of material belonging to others for research and private study. The principle of fair dealing allows this use on the basis of what 'a fair and reasonable person would do' - something which has no concrete definition and is open to a wide degree of interpretation. The Intellectual Property Office recommends that any use of copyright materials should not negatively impact the financial market for the original work and that the amount taken is reasonable and necessary for the new work. For example a researcher could use a short extract of a poem but not the whole text in order to illustrate an argument.
The best advice for researchers confused around any aspect of fair dealing or exceptions is to seek permission for their use of the material. This will ensure that they have the correct permissions in place for the use they need.
You may have come across the terms 'fair dealing' and 'fair use' and assumed that they were the same thing but they actually have different meanings. Fair use is used in the US and is part of the law which limits the exclusive rights of copyright holders. Do some further investigation about the differences and how you can explain this to researchers.
