The general rules of copyright are as follows:
- The term All Rights Reserved normally means the rights holder does not permit an item to be re-used at all.
- Some rights holders allow their works to be re-used in specific circumstances, e.g. for non-commercial or educational purposes. If so, this should be explicitly stated, e.g. "This item can be freely used for educational purposes". Alternatively the rights holder may have chosen to apply a licence, like a Creative Commons licence.
- Sometimes a rights holder will allow a work to be freely re-used without any restrictions at all. If this is the case it should be explicitly stated OR the rights holder may have chosen to apply CC0 (CC zero).
- If a work contains no copyright statement at all it must be assumed that the item cannot be re-used.
In addition to the above, for the purposes of teaching and instruction the University can take advantage of copyright licences (sold by agencies such as the Copyright Licensing Agency) and the education exceptions outlined in Sections 32-36 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 . You'll find more on licences and legal exceptions on subsequent pages of this LibGuide.
