BLE Detailed Copyright Guide: Putting Material on the BLE: Copying Covered by Fair Dealing for Criticism, Review or Reporting Current Events
"Fair dealing for criticism or review" and "fair dealing for reporting current events" are defences allowed by copyright law against actions for infringement. They can be used in some research and teaching situations where a limited amount of material has to be copied for the purpose of discussing the material or recent events. You may be able to put extracts of items on the BLE under one of these "fair dealing" exceptions, including material which is not covered by the CLA licence. However, you must use the material in certain ways, as set out below. Unfortunately it is not possible to give very firm guidance, as the concept of "fair dealing" is not defined in the copyright legislation, and in the event of a dispute the courts will examine all the circumstances of a case.
Fair dealing for criticism and review
Fair dealing for criticism and review can apply to copyright protected material in any format (books and articles, sound recordings, music, films, free-standing photographs and drawings, etc). To put material on the BLE under this exception, you must ensure that:
- The item has already been "made available to the public". This covers not only works which have been published in the conventional sense, but also works which have been performed, exhibited, shown or played in public, made available through rental or lending, or made available through the Internet or an electronic retrieval system. However, completely unpublished material cannot be copied under this fair dealing defence.
- You acknowledge the source of the material. At a minimum, you should identify the author (if known) and the title; a normal bibliographic citation would be more than sufficient.
- You put the material on the BLE as part of a critique or review of the material. Any item which is copied should be accompanied by or form part of some discussion or assessment by the person who posted it of its value, significance, importance etc: e.g. the material might be copied in lecture notes, in a draft article, as part of a presentation, or attached to a posting discussing it. The criticism/review can include a criticism/review of the circumstances surrounding the item. However, it would not be acceptable to simply put an item on the BLE and invite students to comment on it. "Fair dealing for criticism and review" cannot be used to justify putting a copy of a book chapter or journal article on the BLE in isolation.
- You do not use more of the item than is necessary for the purposes of criticism or review. There is no hard and fast limit, and what is considered to be "fair" will depend on the circumstances of the case: e.g. the courts held that it was "fair dealing" for about 10% of the film A Clockwork Orange to be broadcast in a television programme criticising the decision to withdraw it from circulation in the UK. In general, the greater the amount copied, the more the use is likely to be seen as excessive and an infringement of copyright. However, it may be impossible to adequately critique or review certain works (e.g. photographs, drawings) without reproducing the entire work.
Fair dealing for reporting current events
The defence of fair dealing for reporting current events could be used, for example, where a lecturer wants to post material to the BLE to report and discuss ongoing events which are considered to be newsworthy (e.g. unfolding events in the Middle East). This exception can apply to any type of copyright protected material apart from photographs, so a photograph accompanying a newspaper or magazine article would have to be excluded if the article was copied. Published and unpublished material is covered, unlike fair dealing for criticism and review. If you want to post material to the BLE under this exception, you must ensure that:
- You acknowledge the source of the material (as for fair dealing for criticism and review - see above).
- You put the material on the BLE for the purpose of reporting current events. "Current" means recent or ongoing events, and does not cover events in the past even if they are of current interest. "Events" should be understood in its normal dictionary sense, but does not extend to reporting comments, opinions, lifestyle issues, fashion etc.
- You do not use more of the item than is necessary for the purpose of reporting current events. As with fair dealing for criticism and review, there is no definite limit. The more extensive the use, the more likely it is to be seen as "unfair" and an infringement. It would not be advisable to digitise more than a single article from a single issue of a newspaper or magazine, after removing any photographs.
Note that the widely known copyright defence of fair dealing for private study or research cannot be used to put material on the BLE. The defence does not extend to multiple copying, or to situations where copying is carried out for the purpose of enabling others to make copies. It only covers copying carried out by individuals for their own individual, non-commercial use. For further information about fair dealing for private study or research, see Copyright Guidance for SOAS Library Users.
Last updated January 2008
