There are a number of copyright issues associated with the use of the lecture recording system and you should familiarise yourself with these guidelines before using the system.

Summary of the key issues:

Although it may often be legal and acceptable to use certain copyright-protected materials in lectures and seminars, e.g. images in PowerPoint presentations or video clips from commercially available DVDs, it might not be legal or acceptable to record the use of these materials using the lecture recording system at LSE or any other means unless:

• The copyright period in the material has expired
• You own the copyright of the material
• LSE owns the copyright of the material e.g. University publicity material, other learning and teaching resources produced by the University
• You have specific copyright clearance to use the materials in this way

This is because recording the lecture is classified as making another copy, and is therefore a copyright infringement.

It is important to remember that:

• You are responsible for making sure that your recorded lectures do not infringe copyright
• Both you and LSE are at risk from being sued and/or prosecuted for infringing copyright, either within recorded lectures, or by uploading materials to Moodle, public folders or another website.
• Simply placing copyrighted materials within a password-protected environment does not make it legal – it is still unauthorised copying
• Although it may be legal to use these materials within a class, it does not necessarily make it legal to include them within a recorded lecture and/or upload these to Moodle
• LSE reserve the right to remove any content from the lecture capture system in the light of any proven copyright infringements. 

Specific Issues:

Material from your own/colleagues research, including tables and images:

Although it may be your work, you may have already signed away the copyright to this if you have had the research published by a journal. Any publishing agreement must be checked to see how the work can now be used.  In some cases you can use the pre-print version of the article, including the illustrations. Otherwise it may be possible to request for extracts of journal articles to be scanned via the Electronic course pack service offered by the Library. Queries about the e-pack service should be directed to the E-packs Team by emailing epacks@lse.ac.uk

Images

Although it is very easy to download images from the Internet and insert them into your presentations, these images will almost certainly be subject to some sort of copyright, and unless you own the copyright yourself, it is probably NOT legal or acceptable to download them and use them in your recorded lectures. Further information about sources of suitable images is available on the Multimedia resources page.

Images are of course a very powerful aid and may often form an essential part of your teaching.  Fortunately there are many ways that you can legally use images in your recorded lectures:

• Use images where their copyright has expired
• Many sites e.g. Flickr, allow you to use images under a Creative Commons (CC) licence - all CC licences mean the copyright owner must be attributed and there may be other restrictions on its use
• There are an increasing number of Open Educational Resources that allow the use of images in this way. You can search JorumOpen to find these resources.
• Create your own
• Obtain permission to use them from the copyright holder

Video materials

The lecture recording process will only make a very low grade copy of any videos you show in class, so this is not a recommended way to make such materials available to your students.  These low grade copies are still subject to copyright however, so please bear the following in mind:

• Commercially purchased DVDs should not be recorded in this way unless you get permission from the copyright holder
• The copyright in videos that you might show from sites such as YouTube or iTunes U resides with the creator of the video, so again you would need to obtain permission directly from them (YouTube or iTunes U cannot grant this on their behalf). Some of these materials may be available for educational use or under a CC licence.
• Television programmes can be recorded off-air to show in class but can only be made available for viewing online if on campus. The LSE’s current ERA licence does NOT extend to off campus viewing.
• On demand services such as the BBC’s iPlayer are not covered by the off-air recording licence so cannot be made available online as part of a recorded lecture.

If you wish to use any of the above in a lecture you want to record, you will need to edit these parts out of the recording.  Please contact clt-support@lse.ac.uk for advice about this. Please note: it is only possible to edit lectures within two weeks of the lecture.

Sound recordings

Commercially bought audio CDs can be used in class, but should not be included in a lecture recording, so these sections will need to be edited out from the recorded lecture.

Podcasts that you download from the web normally have an implied licence that enables you to copy and use them, as downloading them is a means of copying, so generally speaking you should be ok to use them, unless they have an accompanying statement that precludes their use.  As with all these cases, if in doubt – check.

Streamed audio from services such as the BBC Listen Again service may also be used in class but again should not be included in your recorded lectures so must be edited out.

Further Information

For further advice about copyright see LSE’s Short Guide to Copyright for Staff. Copyright queries can be directed to: j.secker@lse.ac.uk

For more information about using digital resources in your lectures, consult JISC Digital Media’s guide to “Finding Video, Audio and Images Online.”