What is the CLA HE licence for photocopying, scanning and digital re-use?

Answer

The CLA HE licence for photocopying, scanning and digital re-use (‘the CLA licence’ henceforth) supports copying for personal research and teaching within King’s. It is the primary means by which lecturers are permitted to make digital and paper copies of extracts of published works for their students. In practice this is predominantly chapters from books. It also permits digital scans from many sources, which can be distributed within password protected systems like the Virtual Learning Environment KEATS, and in certain circumstances the reuse of publishers’ pdfs in e-learning environments.

This licence is held and paid for by the university. It grants authorised persons, including academics, the ability to copy materials that would otherwise not be permitted. However there are clearly defined limits upon how much can be copied from a copyrighted work, and it should be noted that a great deal of copyrighted material is not covered by the CLA licence. For works that are covered under the licence is it required that the university must own at least one copy of the title within in its libraries for copying to take place. This can easily be checked using the King’s library catalogue here.


What is the CLA licence for?

The CLA HE licence for photocopying, scanning and digital re-use (‘the CLA licence’) supports copying for personal research and teaching within King’s. It allows lecturers to make paper copies for students from copyrighted published works; it permits the distribution of digital scans within password-protected virtual learning environments like KEATS; in certain circumstances it also allows the reuse of publishers’ pdfs in e-learning environments.

This licence grants authorised persons, including academics, the ability to copy materials that would otherwise not be permitted. However there are clearly defined limits upon how much can be copied in terms of scope, a great deal of copyrighted material is not covered by the CLA licence and so cannot be copied under its auspices.


What material is covered by the CLA licence?

The CLA licence does not give blanket coverage, either nationally or internationally. The easiest way to check whether a given work is covered is to enter a book’s ISBN or journal’s ISSN in the CLA's permissions checker: http://he.cla.co.uk/check-permissions-start. Publishers or authors can request specific exceptions for works or groups of works, even for items published within the UK, so coverage cannot be presumed.

Because the permissions checker tool indicates when material is usable under the CLA licence it isn’t necessary to learn the background. However, here is a brief summary of the international agreements that allow (some) international copying.

The CLA have reciprocal arrangements with equivalent bodies in other countries. These allow copying from many items published internationally. However, there are many countries – for instance Portugal, and Brazil – with no such arrangement. This does not mean that there are no circumstances where the CLA licence will permit copying from books published in Portugal. The CLA have made individual deals with publishers that, barring exceptions, will permit copying of their material regardless of the country of publication. The publishers have made an arrangement with the CLA (a list of all such ‘Global Mandate’ publishers can be found here: https://www.cla.co.uk/international/territories).

Where there is such an arrangement, the CLA licence doesn’t give blanket coverage. For instance, the CLA have an agreement with their US equivalent, the CCC, but this does not permit all US-published works to be photocopied. If the publisher’s name appears on this list: https://www.cla.co.uk/international/territories/usa/excluded/he then photocopying is not permitted. Scanning for use in a virtual learning environment or for electronic distribution is permitted from even fewer books published in the US.


How much can I copy using the CLA licence?

Assuming a given title is covered by the licence, there are strictly defined limits upon the extent of copying permitted.

One chapter or 10%, whichever is greater, can be copied from a given book, for a given module, in a given year. For example, if you run two different modules, you can have two different chapters from the same book, one in each module, or you could have the same chapter in both modules. However, you could not copy two different chapters from the same book for a given module. (In a multi-volume work, for a given module you may have 10% or one chapter from each volume.)

The arrangement with journal articles is similar: one article or 10% can be scanned from a given issue of a journal.

The 10% allowance may influence your selection of sources, if a reading is available in multiple editions. For instance, it is usually better, all things being equal, to copy as much as you can from an anthologised multi-chapter reading, and the larger the anthology the better, than from wherever it originally appeared, because 10% of an anthology of eight-hundred pages allows more pages to be reproduced than would be permitted from a one hundred and fifty page volume.

Also, it should be noted that an additional option becomes available with specific regards to poems, short stories or plays. You may copy up to ten pages of a poem, short story or play, even if that is greater than 10%. In practice this means that you can always have a ten page poem, even when the printed work containing it has fewer than two-hundred pages.


Copyright and new editions, and translations of old works:

Copyright applies in ways often overlooked. For example, an edition of Shakespeare’s collected works published in the last 25 years is in copyright, and should be treated as any copyrighted work. This is because a separate copyright resides in the typesetting of the book created by the publisher. So although Shakespeare’s works themselves are not covered by copyright, every page is considered to be in copyright if the edition in question was published in the past 25 years.

A translation is in copyright for 70 years after the translator’s death, just as if they had been the originator of the work. This is a recognition of a translator’s effort and skill, but it also means that a modern translation of Plato’s Republic will not be out of copyright until seventy years after the translator’s death; the date of original author’s death is irrelevant.

The difference between photocopying, scanning and digital reuse:

As previously noted, different rules apply to what can be photocopied, what can be scanned, and when digital reuse (i.e. the downloading and sharing of article pdfs from journal websites by whatever means) can take place using the CLA licence.

In broad terms, the widest range of material can be photocopied and distributed in paper form - for example as handouts or course booklets. Many countries allow photocopying, and no reporting is required to the CLA of what has been photocopied. Fewer countries allow scanning, and of those that do, often less material can be scanned than can be photocopied. Additionally, it is necessary to report usage.

The bottom of this page gives a table that indicates which countries allow what kind of reproduction under the CLA licence.

The top of that same page provides a list of so-called “Global Mandate” publishers. These are arrangements that the CLA have struck with international publishers that mean these that by default, their books can be photocopied and scanned (though note that there may still be specific exceptions to this default position – check the CLA checker tool for a clear indication of whether an individual title from a Global Mandate publisher can be reproduced).

Scanning refers to the digitisation of book or journal extracts by electronic means for digital storage or transmission. Digital reuse is the reusing of born-digital material, for example publisher’s pdfs of journal articles downloaded from a journal website.


CLA Auditing:

When countries allow scanning or digital reuse, it is necessary to report the usage to the CLA annually. The Reading Lists team submit a single annual report of all authorised use on the university’s behalf. This means that if you are seeking to use materials reproduced by any means other than photocopying (i.e. scanning or digital reuse, which include the hosting of extracts or journal pdfs on an e-learning platform) then these should be requested via the MyReadingList service in order that the report is comprehensive.

The CLA periodically audit HEI's to ensure compliance with the terms of the Licence.

Using Copyrighted material in MyReadingLists

Academics can request readings be made electronically available via the MyReadingLists Service provided by Libraries & Collections. MyReadingLists allow direct linking to extracts and ebooks.

For full details on how to request, populate and manage MyReadingLists, see the MyReadingLists libguide. Note that the scanning of a chapter or article will only go ahead if that chapter is not already available in electronic form from one of our ebook or ejournal suppliers, or if you have a particular pedagogic reason to use an edition that isn’t available electronically.

  • Last Updated Aug 24, 2022
  • Views 777
  • Answered By Pete Garner

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