What Teachers Need To Know About Copyright
Julie Murray, Education Licenses Manager at the Copyright Licensing Agency, explains what’s covered by Education Licence and how it can help teachers in search of some resource inspiration… The Copyright Licensing Agency’s Education Licence covers staff to copy material opted-in to the Licence. This may not sound very significant, but it is – making good […]
- by Julie Murray
Julie Murray, Education Licenses Manager at the Copyright Licensing Agency, explains what’s covered by Education Licence and how it can help teachers in search of some resource inspiration…
The Copyright Licensing Agency’s Education Licence covers staff to copy material opted-in to the Licence. This may not sound very significant, but it is – making good use of the Licence could revolutionise how you teach in the classroom.
Without the Licence, the alternative would be having to ask publishers each time you want to make a copy in order to use an extract, or buying enough books for every student for everything you want to show them. With the CLA Licence, you’re able to use high quality, targeted resources while safe in the knowledge that you are complying with copyright law .
More than a photocopying licence
You can copy the resources you need in a number of different ways; it’s not just a photocopying Licence. Let’s not do photocopying a disservice – how else can you provide students with materials that can be annotated, scribbled on, chopped up, sorted, and colour coded? – but it’s worth bearing in mind that the Licence also covers staff to scan material.
This means that a page from a book can be scanned and emailed, ready for student’s homework. It could even be annotated with questions in the margin, so that students are encouraged to engage with the content as they read.
Additionally, the Licence also covers institution staff to copy from digital content – so if, say, there’s something interesting on a website that you want students to see, but you don’t want to rely on a link that may become broken or unstable, the relevant material can be copied and stored offline so that it’s readily to hand.
Is it covered?
Millions of UK and global titles are covered by the CLA Education Licence. You can check what is and isn’t covered with our online ‘Check Permissions‘ tool, which links to an extensive database of books, journals, magazines and websites. A selection of these can also be browsed via our Subject Resource Directory, to provide inspiration for specific subjects and help free up your lesson planning time. Using the sources listed in the directory, it’s possible to create template activities around the material available to move students from passive readers to active learners.
All you need is the Licence, which for many of you will have already been purchased. CLA and the Department of Education last year secured a central licence agreement, which sees to it that all state schools in England are covered by the Licence until April 2021. Different agreements are in place for other UK regions, so talk to your local authority or CLA to find out if you are covered.
In the case of publications that the school already owns and wishes to copy from, up 5% of the publication in question can be reproduced for students, without the need to consult copyright legislation or check with the work’s copyright holder.
And we haven’t forgotten the creators – all the licence fees we receive are distributed back to the authors and publishers who gave us the original permission to copy. We calculate their royalty payments using real-copying data from schools, so you can be sure that if you copy a work, its creator will be justly rewarded with funds that they can then plough back in to creating more high calibre materials for you to use.
CLA is always on hand to help you understand how to make the most of your Licence. Should you have any questions, take a look at our dedicated schools site at schools.cla.co.uk, and don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at 020 7400 3171 or by following @CLA_UK
