Using material from the internet - copyright guidelines

Electronic journals

You may print or download one copy of an electronic journal article from one journal issue for non-commercial research or private study. The Library subscribes to electronic journals under licence terms and conditions - you may check these on the e-journal sites or ask for further advice. Usually it is not possible to make e-journal articles available to other people (for example, by including them on the VLE or emailing them to another person). There are some collections of electronic journals which do allow e-journal articles to be included on the VLE or to be printed out and put into course packs: the Cambridge journals digital archive, the Sage Premier Collection, Science full text select, and the ScienceDirect Freedom Collection. Each item included in a course pack or in the VLE should carry appropriate acknowledgement of the source, listing title, author, publisher and copyright owner.

Databases of reports, primary sources and other full text resources

The Library subscribes to some databases which allow their resources to be downloaded and included in the VLE or to be printed out and put into course packs. Each item included in a course pack or in the VLE should carry appropriate acknowledgement of the source, listing title, author, publisher and copyright owner. These databases include: a-n The Artists Information Company; British Library Sounds; British periodicals; Cochrane library; Construction information service; the Dictionary of national biography; Euromonitor; Fame; Foreign Broadcast Information Service; Global publishing information reports; JISC Historic books; JISC MediaHub; Mintel; Nineteenth century British pamphlets (available via JSTOR); Nineteenth century newspapers; Oxford English dictionary; Oxford language dictionaries; Oxford reference online; Times digital archive.

Bibliographic databases

You may print or download search results from databases for non-commercial research or private study. The Library subscribes to electronic databases under licence terms and conditions - you may check these on the database sites or ask for further advice.

Using images from the internet - advice and links to image sources

Other websites

Material on websites and the internet is protected by UK copyright law. Some websites have clear information about the terms and conditions under which their material may be used; you should abide by these terms and conditions.

However, some non-UK websites may give copyright advice which does not apply in the UK. Also you should be aware that some websites contain material which has been illegally copied; these websites may give misleading advice about how the material may be used. If you need to consider whether the copyright advice given on a website is reliable, check whether the material on the website was contributed by the person or organisation who created or owns the copyright in the material.

If there is no clear or reliable copyright information, then you may download or print from the website under the following conditions. You should only download or print a small part for your own private use and you should not make this available to other people (for example, by including it in a PowerPoint presentation or in the VLE).

Further information and help

Contact Katie Hambrook, Audio Visual Librarian and CLA Licence Co-ordinator.
Telephone (01865) 483146 or email khambrook@brookes.ac.uk