Guest post by Artas Balciunas, work experience student at UCL.

Artas, currently in his first year at college, had his work experience week with the UCL copyright support team in March 2025. Here is his perspective on copyright from a student’s point of view.

Copyright, the protection of original works of authorship, is a prominent concept in daily life; however, students or even adult figures often disregard it as a whole. Copyright infringement can happen in many cases, for example, if someone copied someone else’s image or text from something like a journal or book without permission. As a work experience student, I have learnt three important concepts to note to myself and hopefully to inform other students: Licensing, Open Access, and Fair Dealing. 

Key copyright concepts

Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) poster for Higher Education. This poster is displayed next to printers and copying machines on campus, to provide information on what staff and students can do under the terms of the licence.

Copyright licences. A lot of books and journals used in education are covered by a licence, meaning that anyone subscribing to that licence can use the publication under the terms of the licence. UCL has the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) Higher Education licence, which covers many of  the scholarly resources appearing on reading lists and used in courses, further reinforcing the fact that this is all so important for us students to understand.  However, as great as this is, licenses greatly limit what we can do. We are limited to how much we can copy and we certainly cannot share with others – just use for a particular course. For example, under the CLA licence, UCL students can only access 10% or one chapter from a book.  

Part of a cartoon available on the Creative Commons wiki. Credits: Cartoon concept and design by Neeru Paharia. Original illustrations by Ryan Junell, Photos by Matt Haughey. This comic strip is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence.

Open access. With open access, a resource, for example a book, article or image can be accessed and reused by absolutely anyone. There are no limits or paywalls. It is all easily accessible and reusable – a student’s dream. For example, anyone can download an open access textbook from anywhere in the world, as long as they have an internet connection, and they can also copy and share the resource as long as they credit the author. Another example is Wikimedia Commons, where you can find various media that are shared with an open licence. Open access resources are usually under a Creative Commons licence, which I’m sure a lot of us have heard before. There is a push towards more open access resources however, many scholarly resources are still behind paywalls, making access difficult for students. Together, we can change this.

Source: OpenClipart.

Fair Dealing. Yet another important principle to consider  is Fair Dealing. I certainly did not know this but there are copyright exceptions that allow you to use material for research or study reasons or for teaching, where you might need an example to be able to demonstrate your point. When using the exceptions, you have to think about what is fair and only use what you need for your purpose, considering the interests of the author and the user of the material, and the consequences on the market of the resource. This is the concept of fair dealing in the UK. There are so many more exeptions which are vital to look at when thinking about copyright, especially without a licence. 

Led Zeppelin talking to the ress, 2012. Paul A. Hudson, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Learning about copyright through court cases

Finally, I have particularly seen how court cases can educate students. The UK Law system is common law where precedent, i.e. court cases, alongside legislation, helps shape the legal system. If we were to take a look at such court cases, it can really educate students in the world of copyright and demonstrate why it is so important to really understand the concept. One case that got my interest is the Skidmore. v Led Zeppelin case, which alleged that Led Zeppelin’s song ‘Stairway to Heaven’ infringed (i.e. reproduced without permission) parts of Spirit’s ‘Taurus’. This case has something to teach everybody about how the courts judge originality and similarity, how technicalities in the law affect an outcome and how subjective copyright can be. This is important for everyone to understand, not just music students.

In this case, after a five-day trial, the jury returned a verdict for Led Zeppelin that the songs were not similar under the ‘extrinsic’ test, which is one of two tests required in the Ninth Circuit for works to be deemed substantially similar. Perhaps the results may have differed if the courts had been allowed to compare the recordings and not just the music score, which was not possible because of an older law applied to the song, ‘Taurus’. Skidmore appealed, resulting in another trial which again entails more time, money and resources for such an avoidable thing, and still losing. What we can also learn from this is that copyright court cases take time, effort and their outcomes can be very emotive.

To conclude, students often disregard copyright laws which are so important to understand. It is important to educate but most importantly, it is important to advocate for change so that copyright is more fair for everyone and knowledge becomes more open and accesible. 

If someone ‘infringed your copyright’ i.e. reproduced your work without your permission, would you be…angry? Flattered? Unconcerned? And when you use, say, an image created by someone else, do you think…you always need permission? Or that it’s fine without permission as long as you give credit to the author?  Or that it’s OK as long as the use is ‘educational’?

Image created by Christine Daoutis using icons from Open Clipart.

Copyright questions bring out different reactions in people: dread, interest, uncertainty, horror, excitement, humour or – let’s face it – boredom. ‘Copyright for Humans’ is a new card game created for those whose eyes glaze over at the mention of copyright, those who feel nervous when faced with a copyright question, and those who are interested in copyright and want to share their opinions with others.

Drawing from a large pool of questions and an even larger pool of possible answers, you are encouraged to discuss and respond to different copyright scenarios in humorous and creative ways. You may gleefully agree with some copyright decisions (e.g. ‘this is the best idea since the invention of printing!’) and pompously condemn others (e.g. ‘this is so risky it’s giving me the copyright chills’, you may feel uncertain (e.g. ‘I’m not answering this without my lawyer’ or avoid answering altogether (e.g.’I had the answer but ChatGPT ate it’). The game encourages you to consider different types of answers and learn about copyright in the process.

See a demo of Copyright for Humans, 27 March 2025, Student Centre

To see a demo of the game, say hello to the copyright team and take away some treats, drop by the Student Centre on Thursday the 27th of March, any time between 12 pm and 4 pm. 

Play the game in a small group

Current scheduled sessions are on:

• Tuesday 25 March, 3 pm, IoE Library Training Room. Register for this session.
• Wednesday 11 June, 2 pm, Science Library, DMS Watson Building, Room 417. Register for this session.
• Contact copyright@ucl.ac.uk to arrange a session for your department on a date that suits you.