UK copyright law (primarily The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988) defines a number of exceptions, in the form of permitted acts.
These allow you limited use of copyright works for specific purposes without the permission of the copyright owner. Most have conditions and are subject to a 'fair dealing' assessment.
The exceptions are :
Private study/research
Criticism/review
Quotation
Parody
Instruction/education.
What this means is if you want to use a work for something that’s on this list then, legally, a license or explicit permission are not required. Which is good news, but please bear in mind the following points.
1. Its still not a free for all. Exceptions all come with their own conditions and all of them are subject to a “fair dealing assessment”. 'Fair dealing' is a legal term used to establish whether use of a copyright work is lawful, or whether it infringes copyright. It requires that any copying does not impact on the rights holder and you only copy as much as is necessary for the purpose.
2. How much you can use is also vague, but a good rule is to keep it short. The amount you copy must be reasonable and justifiable for the purpose. Is the amount of the work taken reasonable and appropriate? Was it necessary to use the amount that was taken? Does using the work affect the market for the original work? If using a work substitutes or competes with it, causing the owner to lose revenue, then it is unlikely to be fair. A standalone image lifted from a website will not count as using a small amount as the image is usually considered a whole work.
3. You should give attribution to the work or content you are using in any case.
Yes.
When copyright material is used digitally (e.g. shown on an interactive whiteboard, uploaded to a virtual learning environment, or streamed in an online class), the law requires that:
The audience must be limited to pupils/students and staff at an educational establishment.
Access must be controlled, such as by login/password (e.g., via a school intranet or VLE like Moodle or Blackboard).
The use must still be fair dealing (no more than necessary, for non-commercial teaching, with credit if possible).
The NHS is not an educational establishment in the legal sense so one should take specific care when relying on this exception.
Yes. When a work enters the public domain anyone can use, copy, adapt, and share it without needing permission or giving credit (though attribution is still good practice and is encouraged. Most literary and artistic works enter the public domain 70 years after the author’s death. For example If an author died in 1950, their books would enter the public domain in the UK on 1 January 2021 (70 years after death, rounded to the next full year).
Explicit permission is also not usually required for publications produced by the government. Most government publications are made available via an Open Government License. The Open Government License is a free, flexible license that lets you use, share, and adapt UK public sector information - even commercially - as long as you credit the source.
I want to use something but I’m not sure whether my use is allowed under any of the exceptions and I don’t have explicit permission from the copyright owner to use it. What should I do? |
| You should ask. Identify the copyright owner and ask if you can use their material. If this is not possible you should look for an alternative. While the exceptions are helpful, explicit permission is always the safest and most reliable way to ensure your use is lawful. |
Yes, but tread carefully.
While the reproduction of a newspaper headline to illustrate a point about the topicality of an issue is unlikely to produce an objection from a publisher you should nevertheless keep it brief - reproduce the headline only, not the entire front page.
Be cautious with newspaper logos also. Including them may unintentionally suggest endorsement or affiliation, which should be avoided.
If in doubt, the safest approach is to type out the headline yourself and cite the newspaper as the source.
This helps maintain clarity, avoids copyright or reputational issues, and keeps the focus on the educational message.