External resources

The following resources give further advice on the legal and practical aspects of copyright.

We have also put together a guide to sources of openly licensed content, such as images and music.

Copyright law and guidance

• Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988
  The full up-to-date text of the act, outlining current copyright legislation in the UK.
   
• Copyright User
  Online resource aimed at making UK copyright law accessible to creators, media professionals, entrepreneurs, students, and members of the public.
   
• Intellectual Property Office
  Official UK government body responsible for intellectual property (IP) rights including patents, designs, trade marks and copyright.
   
• Protection of copyright and related property rights in the State of Qatar
  Copyright legislation for those studying or working on the Qatar Campus.

Licensing

• Creative Commons
  Details of the various Creative Commons open licences and how to abide by the licence terms, including advice on proper attribution.
   
• Copyright Licensing Agency
  Details of the CLA higher education scanning licence and permissions checker for seeing what material is covered.

Free-to-use images and music

If your intended use is not covered by a copyright exception, you may want to use openly licensed material. This would include uses such as adding purely decorative images or music to enhance a website or video.

The following sites include material under various open licences. Make sure you follow the terms of relevant licence, which will typically have requirements around aspects such as proper attribution or commercial use.

• Creative Commons music for videos
  Links to sources of openly licensed music suitable for use in videos and presentations.
   
• Europeana
  Digitised collections from galleries, libraries, archives, and museums across Europe, with a search filter for finding copyright-cleared images.
   
• Flickr
  Popular photo-sharing site with images from individuals as well as organisations including museums, galleries and universities. Use the licence filter to limit your search results to material with a Creative Commons licence.
   
• Getty Search Gateway
  Search for public domain images from the collections of the Getty Museum.
   
• Nappy
  Openly licensed stock photos featuring Black models.
   
• Openverse
  Search over 600 million items licensed under Creative Commons, including photos and music.
   
• Pexels
  Stock photos and video released under an open licence.
   
• Pixabay
  Huge range of photos, illustrations, music, and sound effects, mostly under a CC-0 licence.
   
• Unsplash
  High-resolution photos which are free to reuse under the terms of the Unsplash open licence.
   
• Wellcome Images
  Over 100,000 images from the Wellcome Library related to medical science, the body and public health.
   
• Wikimedia Commons
  Repository of openly licensed material including images, videos and sound recordings.