The act of copying includes:
If you carry out any of the above acts, please think about copyright!
If you have any queries, please contact the Copyright Librarian.
Anyone may copy an "insubstantial" part of a published work for private study. Unfortunately, however, copyright law does not define what is meant by "insubstantial", although it is normally taken to be ebtween 5-10% (but no more than you need for the purpose you are copying for). You must make a judgement about what you would consider as fair if it was your work. The concept of 'fair dealing' will help with this - see this video about photocopying for personal use, and the box below.
"Fair dealing" is a legal concept which guides how much of a work you may reproduce for certain specific reasons. It allows any individual to make photocopies of, or re-use in another context, normally, an "insubstantial" amount of a work, under certain circumstances.
Bear in mind that the significance of the extract you use to the publication it is from is as important as the quantity you use when considering how much to reproduce.
The copy is not "fair" unless the answer to all four of the following questions is "yes":
It is essential to give a full acknowledgement of the source of any material copied in this way wherever this is possible.
*Based on or quoted from: Gov.uk (2014) Guidance: Exceptions to copyright. Available from https://www.gov.uk/guidance/exceptions-to-copyright#fair-dealing. Licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0 (Accessed 1 September 2017)
If you think that what you want to copy will not be covered by Fair Dealing, then you will need to ask permission, normally by approaching the publisher or rightsholder. Publishers will usually have a webpage which will contain instructions. Sometimes you can ask permission by filling in an online form, or there may be an email address to use. If there is no webpage use their standard contact email. For other rightsholders (especially if not organisations), you may need to search internet and other sources to identify them and find contact details.
There are some other ways in which you can ask permission.
Remember that it can take time to get permission. If the rightsholder does not reply, this does not mean that you can use the material without permission.
'Photocopier' by mitopencourseware (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Accessed from Flickr 09/07/2015
'23C3: Powerpoint Karaoke - Pie chart which resembles Pac-man' by svenjas (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Accessed from Flickr 09/07/2015