UK copyright law has a specific copyright exception for lecturers / students, or persons for the purpose of instruction to perform, play or show a literary, dramatic or musical work in the course of activities of the educational establishment. (Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, Section 34 parts 1-3)
You are permitted to show any film, television or sound recording in class as long as the following criteria are met:
The University of Derby has a subscription to BoB (Box of Broadcasts) through our ERA Licence (read more about the ERA licence below) and Learning on Screen membership: this enables members of the institution to login to record programmes from over 75 free-to-air channels and search their archive of over 2.2 million broadcasts. It's also possible to create playlists, paste BoB programme links directly into your presentation, make clips and show the transcript - enabling accessibility. You can access BoB off-campus anywhere in the UK, however it is not possible to access BoB overseas.
The University of Derby holds a licence from the Educational Recording Agency (ERA) which allows staff to record for educational non-commercial purposes, the broadcast output of its ERA members - including the BBC, The Open University, and the British Phonographic Industry (bpi). Educational establishments can create a library or collection of recordings or copies for teaching and learning purposes. Recordings need to be labelled with the following wording "This recording is to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence", along with the date, name of the broadcaster and the programme title, where possible.
Recordings can be made available on Blackboard for non-commercial educational purposes, but only for registered staff and students within the UK. You cannot edit or adapt the content in any way, e.g. add a different soundtrack or voiceover, use post-production effects or use the clips in creating a new video. On-demand services such as BBC iplayer, ITV Hub, Channel 4 and 5 can be accessed and downloaded for educational purposes but they cannot be recorded. Please note that third-party advertisements are not included within the ERA licence, as the various ERA members/participants do not own or control the rights to these. For a list of what is permitted under the ERA Licence, please look at the ERA's FAQ section.
You can also use BoB (Box of Broadcasts) to create your own playlists and clips of programmes.
A guide called a Code of Fair Practice for the Use of Audiovisual Works in Film Education has been created to help academics understand the UK copyright implications when legally using audiovisual materials for educational purposes. Designed by Bartolomeo Meletti from Learning on Screen, Chris Morrison from Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford and Jane Secker from City, University of London with input and feedback from distinguished film academics across the UK. This is a really useful, easy to understand guide for academics to understand how certain copyright exceptions in the UK can allow the use of audiovisual works for educational purposes, which are not currently available under one of our licenced platforms, such as BoB.
Copyright is not infringed if you show extracts or even a complete sound recording, film or broadcast from a commercially produced DVD during or outside of your lecture to teachers and students on University premises for educational activities. This would only apply for educational purposes for showing the complete work and not for entertainment purposes however, as that would require a licence.
A digital copy of the DVD may not normally be put on a secure network like Blackboard without permission from the rightsholder/s.
If the DVD is not available commercially then you would be expected to contact the production company and enquire whether you would need a licence for your use and obtain one if necessary.
Use of YouTube videos in teaching largely depends on whether the video in question is in itself an infringing work. Many users of YouTube do not own the copyright of the content they upload: either the video itself or the associated soundtrack; if you were to subsequently embed or link to the video in question to the VLE, you and/or the University would be liable for secondary copyright infringement.
Many legitimate copyright owners, such as CNN, BBC etc. have their own YouTube channels. These are usually clearly distinguished by logos or branding and often have some kind of copyright usage statement. You may use these videos as long as you adequately acknowledge them and embed them within your Blackboard page or presentation using the code provided.
You may not use podcasts, unless you yourself or the University holds the copyright, as these are considered an on-demand service and are not therefore covered by the ERA licence; or they have been made available for use under a Creative Commons licence.
