Students and researchers can copy limited extracts of all types of copyright works for the purpose of research and private study. You must be actively and genuinely studying - for example on a college or university course. The amount is limited by fair dealing and must be sufficiently acknowledged and strictly for non-commercial purposes, and there should be no financial impact on the copyright owner.
Fair dealing permits the use of a work for the purpose of criticism and review provided that the work has been sufficiently acknowledged. For this exception to apply the copying of the work must be truly connected with review and criticism, and not purely for illustrative or enhancement purposes.
Allows for the use of quotations from copyright works for illustrative purposes, provided that the work has been sufficiently acknowledged.
Accessible copies of a copyright work can be made by, or on behalf of, a disabled person. The adapted copy must be for private use only and the work being copied be inaccessible to them without adaptation. See the Accessibility page for more details.
Allows lecturers to copy a small amount of material where necessary to illustrate a teaching point. This extends to include material for examination purposes. Covers music and video as well as text-based material.
Copyright law permits the recording of broadcasts by educational establishments for educational purposes of that establishment, provided that the recording is accompanied by sufficient acknowledgement (unless this would be impossible). This exception enables institutions to provide staff and students off-campus access to recordings of broadcasts. However, this exception only applies where the broadcast is not covered by a licence the institution should have known about, and the majority of broadcasts the University records are already covered by our Educational Recording Agency (ERA) Plus licence. This licence permits the recording of broadcasts for non-commercial educational purposes.
This exception enables UK researchers to copy a work in order to analyse it using text and data mining technologies. The exception applies where the analysis is for the purpose of non-commercial research. You must already have lawful access to the work; for example, where a subscription to a journal is required.
Limited amounts of copyright material can be used for the purposes of caricature, parody and pastiche, and must comply with 'fair dealing'. Students and academics might find uses for this, eg in creating and publishing user-generated content in some disciplines.
Further information on exceptions to copyright is provided by the Intellectual Property Office.