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BLE Detailed Copyright Guide: Putting Material on the BLE: Scanning under the CLA Licence

The Copyright Licencing Agency (CLA) is the main licencing body in the UK for copying from books, journals and magazines. Acting on behalf of rights owners, it grants licences for scanning and photocopying, and distributes the revenue from licence fees to its members. SOAS has a licence from the CLA which allows staff and students to photocopy material within certain limits, and allows staff (not students) to scan extracts from printed books, journals and magazines for the purpose of placing them on the BLE.

The CLA licence provides a convenient and easy way to lawfully digitise copyright-protected material and add it to your course's area on the BLE. Any staff member involved in the delivery of courses or other staff acting on their behalf can digitise material under the licence, provided you've first registered as someone who is authorised to scan under the licence. You must also report details of what you want to scan to the Information Compliance Manager, and you must include a CLA copyright notice which the ICM will send to you. The licence does not allow students to scan material, either on their own behalf or under the direction of a member of staff, unless they are employed by the School (e.g. a postgraduate student working as a teaching assistant).

The licence has some administrative requirements, and requirements about what we can scan and how much can be scanned. The CLA audits HE institutions to ensure compliance with the licence, so it's important that we comply with its terms. The following section summarises what you must do if you want to scan under the licence. 

Getting started with using the CLA licence 
  • First, register as someone authorised to scan under the licence by printing out, completing and returning our registration form. This ensures that we have a list of people authorised to scan under the licence who have agreed to abide by the licence's terms. You only need to register once.

When you have identified something which you want to scan:

  • Check whether an electronic version of the item is already available to students. If so, you don't need to scan it and should add a link instead (see Do I need to put a copy on the BLE? Linking vs copying). This is particularly relevant to journals, as many are available electronically via the SOAS Library's website. The Library is also acquiring an increasing number of e-books. The Library can help you to set up links from an electronic version of your reading list: contact the Electronic Services team or your faculty or subject librarian for further information. 

Note that the CLA licence does not allow us to download a copy of an article from an electronic journal and place the file on the BLE: the licence covers digitisation from paper copies only, and does not extend to electronic material.

Assuming that the item is not available electronically, you should then:

If the item can be scanned:

  • Use the CLA Licence Reporting Form to send details of the item to the Information Compliance Manager (do not start scanning at this stage).
  • The ICM will check the details which you've supplied, and will send you a CLA copyright notice which you must place at the start of the item when you scan the item. Now you can scan the item and place it on the BLE.
  • Note that there are also licence requirements which you have to meet regarding the accuracy of the scanned copy, and how long it should stay on the BLE (see Administrative requirements of the CLA licence).

Apart from the initial registration, the above steps should be repeated for each item which you want to scan.

What items can I scan under the CLA licence?   

The licence allows us to digitise an extract from any published book, journal or magazine up to the amount allowed (see How much can I scan under the CLA licence?), provided the work meets the following conditions:

(1) It must be published in the UK or the USA. A book, journal or magazine can be assumed to be published in the UK or USA if the publisher's details on the title pages include a UK location or address, even if other locations are also listed (e.g. some publishers may list all of their international offices).

(2) SOAS must own a paper copy of the item. Normally, this means that a hard copy should be held in the SOAS Library (check the Library Catalogue). If the Library does not have a copy and the reading is important for the course, ask the Library to order a copy. That will allow you to scan from the item, and will also allow students to access it in paper form. You cannot scan items obtained through inter-library loan or material which is held in other libraries. Note as well that personal copies of books, journals etc owned by staff cannot usually be scanned under the licence (contact the Information Compliance Manager for further details).

If a work could be scanned under the licence but the Library does not hold a copy of it, it may be possible to order a "copyright fee paid" copy of the relevant chapter or article through a document supply service like that operated by the British Library. A "copyright fee paid" is a special type of photocopy or scanned copy, which can be copied under the CLA licence in the same way as an original book, magazine or journal. Contact your subject librarian or the Library’s Interlibrary Loans section for further information. While the Interlibrary Loans section can order “copyright fee paid” copies, the cost of doing so must be met by the department which requires the copy for teaching purposes. The department must keep the “copyright fee paid” copy for as long as photocopies or scans from that copy are used for course packs.

(3) It must not appear on the CLA's lists of works excluded from digitisation. There are three lists on the CLA's website which you should check:

These lists are updated regularly by the CLA.

The CLA scanning licence does not cover certain categories of works:

  • Anything published outside the UK or USA.
  • Unpublished material (whether or not it was created in the UK or USA).
  • Newspapers (however, magazines are covered).
  • Printed music.
  • Maps, charts and books of tables.
  • Audio-visual materials (films, sound recordings etc), and free standing photographs and other artistic works (however, illustrations which form part of a book, journal article etc are covered).
  • Works published in the UK or USA whose publishers are on the CLA's List of Excluded Categories and Works, list of Excluded US Publishers or list of Works Excluded from Scanning Under the HE Licences.
  • Publications which include a statement that they are excluded from licences granted by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
  • Interlibrary loans (other than "copyright fee paid" copies).
How much can I scan under the CLA licence?  

Provided the item which you want to scan is covered by the licence (see What items can I scan under the CLA licence?), you can digitise up to the following amounts for the purpose of putting the material on the BLE:

  • Up to 5% or one chapter from a book (whichever is greater), plus any associated endnotes or references.
  • Up to 5% or one article from a journal issue (whichever is greater), plus any associated endnotes or references.
  • Up to 5% or one paper from a set of conference proceedings (whichever is greater).
  • Up to 5% or one case from a report of judicial proceedings (whichever is greater).
  • Up to 5% of an anthology of short stories or poems, or one short story or poem of up to 10 pages.

These amounts must not be exceeded: otherwise, you will be breaking the licence's terms. For example: if you have already scanned an article from a journal or a chapter from a book and have put the article/chapter on your course's area on the BLE, you cannot scan another article or chapter from the same source for the same course unless the total amount scanned is still under 5%. However:

  • You can use the same article or chapter for a different course which you are teaching; and
  • You can scan another article/chapter from the same source for a different course, provided the total extent of the work used for one course does not exceed the limits set out above. In other words, the limits apply per work per course.

In both cases, you must report what you have scanned and the course on which you want to use the item using the CLA licence reporting form (see Getting started with using the CLA licence).

Administrative requirements of the CLA licence 

The CLA licence has some general administrative requirements which are summarised below. Following the steps in Getting started with using the CLA licence will ensure that your scanning meets these requirements and is covered by the licence.

(1) When scanning an item, the scanned copy must be a faithful and accurate representation of the original. This means that it should be legible and should not be altered, edited or manipulated in any way. You can, however, scan an illustration and remove it ("disembed" it) from its accompanying text.

(2) A standard CLA copyright notice must be added to the scanned copy, in a prominent place - typically by scanning the notice first so that it appears at the start. The Information Compliance Manager will send you a copyright notice based on the information which you supply on the CLA licence reporting form (see Getting started with using the CLA licence).

(3) Every year, we have to send a return to the CLA summarising the items which have been scanned under the licence. This information is taken from the details which you supply on the CLA licence reporting form about each item which you plan to scan (see Getting started with using the CLA licence).

(4) The CLA licence requires that once a course has completed, any scanned copies covered by the licence should be removed from the course's area on the BLE unless the same course is likely to be taught in the next term or academic year. In practice, course collections on the BLE are normally emptied at the end of the academic year by the LTU. The LTU can roll over material to the next year on request, or you can reload files from a backup disc or directory if you want to use them on the BLE in a future presentation of the course. However, you should ensure, for each item, that:

  • It is still relevant to the course - if not, it should not be placed on the BLE;
  • It has not been added to the CLA's lists of excluded works since it was last used (see What items can I scan under the CLA licence?); and
  • You should return details of the item using the CLA licence reporting form so that it can be included on SOAS's next return to the CLA.

(5) Remember that the CLA licence does not allow you to use a digital copy for any purpose other than delivering it to students and staff involved in a course, usually by placing it on the course's area of the BLE. For example, you cannot:

  • Send it to anyone other than a student enrolled on the course, or a staff member involved in delivering the course or in putting material on the BLE;
  • Publish the copy outside the BLE, e.g. on a website or the SOAS intranet.
  • Quote from the copy other than as permitted by "fair dealing" (i.e. as for any other work); or
  • Use the copy to build up a "library" of digitised material - although you can keep copies of what you upload to the BLE for backup purposes, and you can use backup copies to reload items to the BLE (see point 4, above).

The general rule is that copies scanned under the CLA licence should only be accessible to the students enrolled on a course and the staff involved in teaching it.

However, images scanned under the licence can be incorporated into presentations for delivery in lectures and tutorials. Separate guidance is being developed on the copyright aspects of preparing presentations. In the meantime, if you want to use the CLA licence in this way, contact the Information Compliance Manager for advice (see Further information and advice).

Students are permitted by the licence to download and print out single copies of digitised works. However, they must not re-distribute or publish copies covered by the licence in any way. Where necessary, students should be reminded that doing so will infringe copyright and contravene the School's IT Policies.

Last updated August 2012