Licences
Information about different licence types.
Introduction
A licence is a legally binding agreement that can be written or verbal, or in certain cases can be implied. It is a means by which the owner of a copyright can authorise other parties to make use of their work, subject to the licence terms.
A licence can only be given by the person who owns the copyright, or who is authorised to act on behalf of the rights owner.
At the University of Sheffield, we rely on different types of licence:
Blanket licences, such as those offered by the Copyright Licensing Agency. These have a yearly cost for the institution and give authorised users permission to carry out certain acts with certain works.
Open licences, such as Creative Commons and open software licences. These facilitate sharing and reuse by giving the owner a way to make their work available subject to certain conditions.
Licences are useful because they offer an extremely low-risk and unambiguous way to use a work. When you use a licence, always check that it is being offered by somebody who is authorised to do so.
Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) licence
This, subject to terms and conditions, permits the copying and re-use of extracts of text and still images from printed books, journals and magazines, and from digital publications including some free-to-view and subscription websites.
The licence covers most printed books, journals and magazines published in the UK, plus many published overseas and a large number of digital publications.
You can find out whether a particular publication is covered by using the CLA Check Permissions tool
Under the terms of the licence, you may:
- make photocopies to be distributed to registered students and members of staff,
- ask the library to scan chapters/journal articles etc. to use in teaching on specific modules,
- scan an image from a book or journal and embed that image in a lecture presentation with suitable acknowledgement.
For more details please see the terms and conditions of the licence document and the user guidelines.
Members of staff needing advice on their options when making material available using our CLA permissions should contact lib-acquisitions@sheffield.ac.uk, as this is a centralised service and an obligatory part of the licence.
Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA Media Access) licence
This permits staff and students to make ad-hoc copies of cuttings from UK national newspapers and several regional and international titles. Please note, that this excludes the Financial Times.
Under the terms of the licence, staff and students of the University have the right to:
- make photocopies of cuttings taken from NLA newspapers that the University is covered for (as above),
- fax cuttings taken from those newspapers.
Staff are also permitted to make up to 250 photocopies of any article for students for inclusion in study packs.
Please see the terms and conditions (PDF, 754KB) and user guide (PDF, 474KB) for more information. Please visit the library's databases to find the appropriate text.
Educational Recording Agency (ERA+) licence
This allows the recording and storage of television and radio programmes and allows the University to subscribe to Box of Broadcasts (BoB) which is an on-demand TV and radio service for education.
Staff and students at the University (and other subscribing institutions) can record programmes from many free-to-air channels (see the full channel list), search an extensive archive, as well as creating clips, and compiling playlists.
Full terms and conditions are available here.
Creative Commons licences
Creative Commons issued its first licences over twenty years ago. There are currently six main licences. For rights holders, these offer a way to make their works available to others to reuse under clearly defined terms. For users, they provide a simple way of knowing exactly which uses of a work can be made without needing to seek further permission.
The table below shows the licences and a summary of the terms.
Licence | Elements | Requirements and restrictions |
|---|---|---|
Attribution | Attribution: where indicated you must clearly credit the title, author(s), source and licence of the work, in a reasonable manner, and indicate if any changes have been made. | |
Attribution ShareAlike | ShareAlike: in addition to Attribution (see above), if you remix, adapt or build upon the underlying work then the modified material must be shared under identical terms. | |
Attribution NonCommercial | NonCommercial: in addition to Attribution (see above) you may not use the work for any commercial purpose (no directly or indirectly profit-seeking use permitted). | |
Attribution NoDerivatives | NoDerivatives: in addition to Attribution (see above) you may only reproduce the work in unadapted form, i.e. you may not make any changes. | |
Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike | Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike: as noted above, you must give appropriate credit, may not make any commercial use, and must share any adapted material under identical terms. | |
Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives | Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives: as noted above, you must give appropriate credit, may not make any commercial use, and may not make any adaptations or changes. |
Our Bitesize Webinar looks at Creative Commons licences in more detail, including further explanation of their terms and how they can be used.