CLA Higher Education Licence: Quick Guide: Library & E-Learning Staff

The CLA HE Licence grants permission, subject to terms and conditions, to copy extracts of text and still images from most printed books, journals and magazines published in the UK and many published overseas, and from many digital publications. 

This Quick Guide covers some of the main points that may be particularly relevant for library and e-learning staff. More information is available in our comprehensive User Guidelines.

Checking Licence coverage

• To check coverage quickly and easily, we recommend that you use our Check Permissions tool.
• However, bear in mind that all printed books, journals and magazines published in the UK are automatically covered by the Licence unless they have been specifically excluded.

Source edition

•  Copies must be made from the original published edition owned by your HEI, or from a ‘copyright fee paid’ copy (e.g. from the British Library).
• Personal copies owned by academic staff cannot be except under exceptional circumstances.
• Items borrowed via an inter-library loan (e.g. from another HEI, an FEI, NHS library or the British
  Library) cannot be used as source editions.

Copying in excess of Licence extent limits

• Should copying be requested that is in excess of the Licence limits (one chapter/article or 10% of the total publication), this would require clearance.
• You can seek such clearance from the appropriate rightsholder, or purchase it via our Second Extract Permissions Service.

Who may copies be made available to?

•  Registered students and staff of your HEI.
• Digital Copies made for students and staff in connection with any Course of Study should only be downloaded and printed out by Course Users – that is, students taking the course for which the copy was made, and those staff teaching it. We prefer that this is achieved via technical means (e.g. a password-protected area of your VLE); however, if that’s not practical, we advise that wording is added to the Copyright Notice to the effect that the Digital Copy ‘should not be downloaded or printed out by anyone other than a student enrolled on the named course or a member of staff teaching it’.

Making Digital Copies

• Any member of staff can copy under the Licence – but some HEIs do restrict the making of digital
  copies for course provision to certain members of staff. It depends on how your HEI has decided to
  best manage its obligations under the Licence. If you are not sure, please contact your CLA Licence
  Co-ordinator or Copyright Advisor.

How does the CLA Licence fit with primary licences?

• The Licence is intended to be complementary to primary licences – copying can be done either under the primary licence or the CLA Licence.
• If the CLA Licence is more generous than the primary licence, that’s fine – provided you don’t override or circumvent any DRM embedded within a product.
• Special conditions apply for many US publications – please see page 15 of the User Guidelines for details.

This Quick Guide is provided for guidance only. Please note that it does not substitute for the terms and conditions of the Licence, and that, in the event of a conflict between the two, the Licence prevails.