JISC Legal : Copyright / IPR

A simplified step-by-step guide to Copyright Law for FE and HE.

A simplified step-by-step guide to intellectual property law for UK colleges and universities.

This briefing addresses the legal issues that further and higher education institutions may face when engaging with employers as part of their Business and Community Engagement ("BCE") activities.

This briefing gives an overview of some of the legal issues which institutions can face when carrying out cultural and public engagement activities as part of their Business and Community Engagement ("BCE") activities.

The purpose of this Moral Rights and OERs Overview paper is to guide publishers of open educational resources (OERs) on the meaning of moral rights, when and how these impact on the creation of OERs and measures which may be taken in order to avoid infringement of moral rights. 

Our Mobile Technologies and the Law webcast (streamed live on 14 March 2012) can now be accessed in captioned, bite-sized segments.  

Whatever the mobile technology use, there are legal issues to consider from the outset of your project and this is a checklist of the main areas to consider in your planning process.

Whether you work in a teaching, research, management or support capacity, the toolkit will help you to make confident, informed decisions about implementing cloud computing solutions in your institution.

While a company can own the copyright in a work (and will do so in relation to copyright works created by employees in the absence of agreement to the contrary), the duration of copyright is still linked to the original author.

The purpose of this communication is to dispel a recent misconception about what the current HE Copyright Licence permits in respect of the provision of copyright material to non-UK students overseas.

Copyright in a work is not infringed by lending by an educational establishment. However you may find that a restriction ... (cont)

Nominet decisions cannot be appealed by the back door to the courts. Rightsholders and registrants must get a DRS action right in the first place.

The Digital Economy Act 2010 was given royal assent late on Thursday, 8 April 2010, following the final reading of the Digital Economy Bill in the House of Commons, the previous night.

A recent Opinion for the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has taken a pragmatic approach to the law surrounding the resale of unwanted computer programs.

Belief that copyright permission has been granted is no defence to infringement of copyright if no valid permission was, in fact, given.

Came into force on 31 December 2009.   

(NLA) v Meltwater - In the particular circumstances of commercial news headlines and their monitoring and copying for commercial gain much of the content will attract copyright protection.

Vince Cable has announced that controversial plans to force ISPs to block websites that host copyright infringing material are to be dumped. 

Recommendations made by the Hargreaves review of intellectual property and growth have been accepted by the Government.

A single European patent looks ever more likely as agreement is reached on the detail of a unitary patent.

A new law that comes into force today (14 June 2011) in England and Wales will make it easier to protect patent and design rights.

 The European Commission's proposals for a unitary European patent have now been published.

The Budget supporting papers have indicated various proposed actions including a new Communications Act and proposals relating to intellectual property.

The unitary EU patent is a step closer with the agreement to proceed with the support of 25 of the 27 EU countries.

A Statutory Instrument has been set out on costs sharing for rights holders and ISPs in implementing the Digital Economy Act. 

The High Court recently decided, in relation to copyright law, that the term ‘making available’ to the public, that the 'making available' happens where the servers send the files, rather than where received.

In an Israeli court case this month, the user of Creative Commons licensed photographs was found to have infringed copyright by creating and selling collages using those images without complying with the CC BY-NC-ND licence's conditions.

As part of the Welsh Repository Network (WRN) project an interactive quiz regarding, copyright implications with multimedia deposits, was created for a repository staff training session. 

New supplementary guidance from the GMC entitled 'Making and using visual and audio recordings of patients' is now available from their website.  

This toolkit aims to guide information professionals in assessing cloud computing services for information use and storage, including development of a cloud computing strategy.

The University of Glasgow's 'Easy Access IP' and 'Commercial Deals' aim to transfer University-generated IP to the private sector.  For more information, please see: http://www.gla.ac.uk/businessandindustry/technology/.

In the world of intellectual property, there is no getting away from the fact that clearing rights in audio-visual resources is rarely straightforward. However, there’s a lot of good stuff out there that can be incorporated into OER, without the trials and frustrations of content clearance.

This presentation 'IPR, Licences, and What Do I Have to Do?' was developed for the OER IPR support project.

This collection of materials written by Web2Rights, provides briefings, guides, templates, models and sources of further information in order to assist open educational resource (OER) projects get to grips with intellectual property issues at the outset.

This project will provide IPR and licensing support for JISC/HEA funded OER Phase 2 projects with particular emphasis on the use of Creative Commons Licences.

A resource from the Higher Education Academy English Subject Centre aimed at those developing courses which suggests that it is necessary to consider copyright clearance from the start.

This website, which is maintained by the Intellectual Property Office provides guidance on intangible assets and how to manage these assets and create value from them - http://www.ipo.gov.uk/ian.htm.

This IP Workbook, from Eversheds LLP solicitors, contains practical examples, questions and scenarios on a range of commercially related topics with an intellectual property (IP) dimension.

Creative Commons licences ("CC licences") permit the copying, reuse, distribution, and in some cases, modification of creative work without having to obtain permission every single time from the rights holder.
The briefing paper referred to below provides JISC-funded projects, as well as content creators and others within higher (HE) and further education (FE) institutions, with information that can be used to make judgements as to when the use of open content licences, particularly Creative Commons licences, may be appropriate - http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/briefingpapers/2009/bpcreativecommons.aspx.

The Strategic Content Alliance has produced a useful IPR toolkit covering the IPR background, practical tools, template policy statements, case studies and links to further reading.

JISC Digital Media has produced a guide to font licensing entitled 'Fonts: Basic Guide to Font Licensing.'  This guide provides detailed information on using End User License Agreements and provides details specific to Adobe, Microsoft Office and Apple.

This useful presentation is a recording of Jason Miles-Campbell on RSC TV.