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Roles and Responsibilities for Staff Using Images for Teaching and Research

Last updated: 09 October 2006
Published in: Finding and using digital media
Tags: business & community engagement | copyright | cla

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Summary

Copyright and related rights issues will be central to most activities involving the use of digital images within teaching and research activities. This paper is aimed at staff using images in this way and highlights the range of rights issues affecting digital images. It includes a stage-by-stage guide to clearing rights in images for use in teaching and research.

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Why is copyright important to staff using images for teaching and research?
  3. A process chart for users of digital images
  4. Stages in the clearance of images for use in teaching and research
  5. Checklist for key action points
  6. Further resources and information

1. Introduction

Copyright and related rights issues will be central to most activities involving the use of digital images within teaching and research activities. It is therefore essential that staff using images in this way are aware of the range of rights issues affecting these digital images and take their responsibilities seriously with regards to the clearance of these rights. The activities that are likely to require the use of digital images in this context and therefore require thorough assessment of the issues and careful planning include:

  • Use of digital images in online resources and e-learning activities, such as course packs and Virtual Learning Environments
  • Use of third party images for presentations and lectures
  • Inclusion of images within e-publications
  • Use of images within research
  • Creation of art materials

In order to understand the essential issues about copyright, this paper should be read in conjunction with JISC Digital Media's Copyright and Digital Images advice document.

2. Why is copyright important to staff using images for teaching and research?

  • Copyright creates an automatic legal framework that protects digital content from unauthorised use and it is therefore important that the appropriate permissions have been granted before images are used. Otherwise, this may constitute an infringement of copyright and at the very least possibly sour relationships with third party rights holders who may provide your institution with other services which could be affected.
  • Unfortunately, the copyright law provides only limited fair dealing provisions for educational establishments (see JISC Digital Media's paper on Copyright and Digital Images for more information). Whilst certain examination and instruction activities will be covered, "academic" use is not. This means that for many research or teaching activities, unless a licensing agreement is in place that permits these activities, or the images are out of copyright, or alternatively, the rights are owned by your institution (such as images created by staff during the course of their employment duties), rights will need to be cleared with any third party parties so that these digital images can be used.
  • Due to the increased capacity of search engines to find images on the Internet, it is now very easy to access huge quantities of images. However, the majority of these will still be protected by copyright and possibly other rights (such as rights in the object, the copyright in the image of the object, or both) and authorisation will still be required for their use.

3. A process chart for users of digital images

It is clear therefore that there will be a number of decisions and processes that will need to be considered in using images for teaching and research purposes. These are graphically represented in the chart on the next page. The chart has been divided into eight key stages which are then explained in more detail. Whilst the chart is not an exhaustive assessment of all the variations and circumstances which might arise, it provides a useful guide to navigate around the key issues associated with the use of images.

Table 1 - Process chart for clearing rights in images to be used in teaching and research (please click image for full version)

Process chart for clearing rights in images to be used in teaching and research

4. Stages in the clearance of images for use in teaching and research

Stage 1 - What type of image do you want to use and how do you want to use it?

  • Think about the type of image that you wish to use. For example, is it a work of fine art, a documentary image, a graphic image or an image of a group of people?
  • Plan in advance the types of uses that you may have for the images - for example, do you want to reproduce the image in its entirety or incorporate it within another work, or even within another image? Do you wish to reproduce the image as a detail, or do you wish others to be able to manipulate or alter it? (For more information on this issue, see the JISC Digital Media advice document on Copyright and Digital Images.
  • How and to what extent will the digitised images be used and distributed?
    • Will the images be available in electronic format?
    • Will the images be available in print?
    • Will you be charging for access to the work in which the image is used? If so, this may preclude you from using certain images made available under 'non-commercial' licence terms.
    • Who do you want to access these images and for what purposes?
    • Are there any specific terms and conditions of funding agreements which mean that the image may also be required for specific uses by third parties?
  • Will the images be used in learning and teaching materials? Traditionally if analogue images were to be used for learning and teaching a certain leeway was given to those wanting to copy them by means of 'fair dealing'. However, the use of digital images within teaching and learning activities employing digital means of dissemination, is far more restrictive and 'fair dealing' is considered much less of a defence for copying. For more information on Fair Dealing, see JISC Digital Media's advice document on Copyright and Digital Images.
  • Make sure that you plan early for any resources that you will need in order to use the image. These may include resource budgets for paying for any copyright fees such as: subscription fees for JISC licensed content such as SCRAN or EIG; administration costs; as well as human resource costs. It is important to consider whose responsibility it will be for covering these costs - you, your institution, your publisher, a funding party or another source?

Stage 2 - Where are you sourcing the image from?

  • Make sure that you leave yourself plenty of time to source images and factor this into any planning that you may undertake.
  • There are a number of sources for images which will range from commercial picture libraries, who are likely to charge you for use, to those images supplied for free (in accordance with specific terms and conditions) such as JISC Collections. See JISC Digital Media's advice papers on finding and using images.
  • Rights in images may also belong to your institution if created by staff or licensed for use by students. Alternatively, unless rights have been assigned they may belong to a commissioned party, a consultant or contractor. Also, the rights may be administered by a collecting society or not necessarily immediately apparent if the image is provided by an image supplier, scanned from an unknown source or sourced from the Internet.
  • With regards to the supply of images from commercial picture libraries and other similar organisations, copyright may exist within an object as well as within an image of the object. You may therefore be required to secure permission (and pay the respective charges) twice and this should be factored into your budget. For example, a photograph of a painting within a house interior might have a copyright claimed by the photographer, the painter as well as the interior designer. When the photograph is used within a magazine it might gain the further copyright of the magazine designer and publisher.
  • Do you need to contact persons other than the creator of the image? For example, if an image is to be used commercially, has the subject of the image completed a model release form?
  • Is there any additional documentation or metadata about the image that you may want to include alongside the digital image or use, and if so, will that need copyright clearance? The author of this text will have copyright so this will need to be cleared as well as the image. This might include using a caption for the image taken from an accompanying book.
  • Might the use of any additional text (or caption) with the image have any 'Moral Rights' implications for the creator? Some images have copyright licences that prescribe what captions can and cannot be used with that image. This might be used to prevent an image being used for a political intent other than that for which it was originally shot.

Stage 3 - Is the image being made available under a licence?

  • There are likely to be a range of terms and conditions which will determine how an image can be used. These may take the form of the following examples:
    • Some Web sites will require your agreement to a range of terms and conditions before images can be seen or accessed.
    • Some image suppliers will permit access to low resolution images, but will only permit you access to higher resolution images if you agree to a specific licence.
    • You institution may have already signed up to certain terms and conditions to use digital images such JISC Collections.
    • Digital content may be subject to the terms and conditions of Creative Commons licences or other similar model licences.
  • For images in which you are unable to find information relating to any further use that you wish to make of the image that is not covered under 'fair dealing', it is sensible to assume that these will be protected by copyright and so you will need to ensure that you have written permission in order to use the images in the ways that you want.
  • Permission can be in the form of letters, licences, or more formal contracts. This will depend upon your requirements and those of the rights holders that are granting you permission.
  • A major component of rights clearance is the identification of who owns the rights in the images that you wish to exploit.
  • Tracing rights holders can be one of the most time consuming elements of rights clearance and this will need to be factored into the overall strategy for your work.
  • If you cannot find the rights holders or they do not respond, you will need to ensure that you have carried out extensive attempts to find them and kept a paper file for this purpose in accordance with 'due diligence'. Due diligence will not eliminate your risks of infringing rights, but considered together with a risk management assessment, can assist your institution in deciding whether it is sensible to use the images or not.
  • Permissions will be granted under one of the following circumstances: permissions that are granted for use of the image on a case by case basis and so will need to be negotiated for every further use of the image or after a certain amount of time; those that are granted to a range of users; or perhaps those which may be more open ended and either assign the rights to your institution (for example, when a work is commissioned from third parties), or issued under a licence such as Creative Commons.

Stage 4 - Make sure that you understand what you are permitted to (and not) to do

  • The CLA Scanning License may, in limited circumstances, cover your purposes, although it is important to stress that the CLA License will not permit you to scan and aggregate digital images into a collection. See JISC Digital Media's advice document on Copyright and Digital Images for more information about the CLA Scanning Licences for FE and HE institutions.
  • Some types of permission will take the form of contractually binding agreements and impose on you requirements beyond the permission needed to use the image (such as confidentiality clauses, and requirements to digitally watermark and encrypt images). It is really important that you take time to read the small print, query anything that you do not understand and negotiate for the removal of clauses for which you are not able, or do not want, to comply with.
  • This may be a stage where you consider seeking further legal advice about the implications of such agreements upon you, your work and your institution.
  • Digital material which is provided on the Internet under the terms of a Creative Commons Licence is still subject to copyright and careful note should be taken of what the specific licence allows you to do.
  • If the licence does not permit you the uses that you require (in accordance with Stage 1 above), you may need to negotiate fresh terms, seek further permissions, or alternatively find another source of images.
  • Remember that if you wish to publish or make available the image to third parties (through the Internet or a VLE for example) under a licence such as Creative Commons, you will need to ensure that you have secured appropriate permissions from rights holders for this purpose.

Stage 5 - Managing Digital Rights

  • It is important to manage rights and have a central place for holding records of all agreements that have been made: both for 3 rd party content licensed to you to use, and for content that you have licensed on to other users. These records will help ensure that you are aware of the terms of agreements, comply with conditions, and are alerted when rights are about to expire.
  • Key issues relating to rights management include:
    • Who will be responsible for looking after the copyright or the rights that are licensed to you?
    • What metadata will be needed to hold all the relevant information and what infrastructure is needed to manage this metadata? This includes the copyright metadata about the images.
    • How will this metadata be stored?
  • Many people use image management systems (or equivalents) to manage rights-related information. For more information on these systems, see the JISC Digital Media advice document on Systems for Managing Digital Media Collections.

Stage 6 - Protecting digital images

  • It may be within the terms and conditions of your agreements with rights holders that you need to take responsibility for protecting digital images once they are displayed and/or you feel that it is important to prevent users from inappropriately reusing these images.
  • Credit lines and the display of images in low resolution formats (480 by 640 pixels maximum) are typical low/no cost ways of protecting content.
  • Off the shelf solutions also include watermarking, time and access limitation, which can all provide ways of protecting the digital images that belong to you and third parties.
  • The technology used in this area changes very rapidly and there are continual advancements which, whilst not entirely effective against infringements and privacy, will provide a useful deterrent. In some cases they may provide further details about who is using your images and for what purposes.

Stage 7 - Providing access to digital images

  • Any choices that you make regarding access must be in line with the terms of the licence to use the images.
  • When providing access, think about educating your user through the use of copyright statements and credit lines.
  • Consider whether some images will be freely available whilst others are restricted. Sometimes it is useful or necessary to make some images available to all users at a range of quality and sizes, whilst others are only available to those with permission to see them or only at certain, smaller sizes. Access control systems such as ATHENS will be able to provide you with the ability to control who can access what content, whilst SHIBBOLETH will be able to provide additional levels of granular access that you may want.
  • Will some users have different viewing rights to others and if so, how will this be controlled and monitored? Sometimes it can be useful to control the user rather than the image. In practice, if you wish to control usage, it is likely that you will need to limit access to both images and users so that a mixture of both approaches will be called for.

Stage 8 - Using digital images

  • Careful thought needs to be given into how digital images might be accessed, because whilst open access is important to achieve the primary aims of Further and Higher education institutions, there may be strategic and other reasons why it may not be appropriate for some images to be made available in this way. For example, some images may contain elements that are offensive (to some) or commercially sensitive. This is an area that you may need to explore in more depth and discuss with within your institution prior to coming to a decision. Remember that providing access via the Internet is publishing and if images are too valuable to make globally accessible, then you should not put them up!
  • Creative Commons licences can offer you the opportunity to licence your content to users including the image for which you have secured rights under specific licensing terms. In order to use a pre-devised licence template, like Creative Commons, it is important that one of the following is met:
    • Your institution owns the rights in the images which you wish to licence.
    • You institution has permission from third party rights holders to make content available under Creative Commons.
    • The image is out of copyright, which could be unlikely.

5. Checklist for key action points

  • Have you created a specific list of exactly what you want to do with the image? This will enable you to be very clear about exactly what permissions are granted (or asked for) when any copyright licence is drawn up and signed.
  • Are you ready to ask permission once, for all the different things you may wish to do with the material? This of course presumes that you have decided all the ways that you wish to use this image in the future. It should also be remembered that sometimes the copyright owner might only wish to give permission for some of your proposed uses and you might need to either modify your goals or ask again at a later stage.
  • Have you got permission from the rights holder to use the images? This may be in the form of a licence already in place, or alternatively one that you may need to negotiate yourself.
  • Are all your agreements documented in writing? To be legal, any copyright agreement must be written down, preferably in the form of an agreed licence signed by both parties.
  • Are you continually updating your diligence file to record all your efforts to clear copyright? This should, of course, include all copyright and IPR metadata associated with the image and the creator.
  • Have you made every effort to find and contact the creator of the work? See stage 3.
  • If, despite making all efforts to find the creator, you are unable to, do you go ahead and use the image anyway? Most good advice would be to not use any image if copyright permission cannot be proven to have been given to you. However, in some circumstances, decisions are made to go ahead, digitise and use the image and react accordingly if the owner should re-appear at a later date and complain. This can be a risky undertaking and JISC Digital Media would certainly recommend that you take further legal advice if you wish to use any image for which you do not have full copyright clearance.
  • If you use an image without having obtained permission, are you prepared and able to:
    • Apologise and offer to pay?
    • Remove the image immediately if asked to by the copyright holder?
    • Credit the rights holder in accordance with their wishes?
    • Pay penalties for your breach of copyright if asked?

6. Further resources and information

Advisory services

In-depth resources

Licensing agencies and clearance services

Sources of images

Last updated: 09 October 2006
Published in: Finding and using digital media
Tags: business & community engagement | copyright | cla

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