All points in this Section apply to use of Digital Material; the guidance is only relevant to those licensees who are signatories to the Comprehensive Licence including digital copying rights.
Subject headings:
Repertoire (go back)
The Digital Material available for use under the terms of the licence consists only of those works published in:
UK
with specific reference to those publishers listed in the list of Participating digital material publishers - Higher Education Licence (as published on the CLA website and amended to from time to time; any amendments will be drawn to HEIs’ attention on a monthly regular basis)
Other countries (including the USA)
Australia, Canada (including Quebec), Denmark, Finland, France, Hong Kong, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Spain and Switzerland, and the USA: please refer to the CLA International webpage; any additions will be notified to HEIs on a monthly regular basis. Clicking on the relevant country will show any specific inclusions or exclusions. (Further details regarding the USA can be found by referring to the list of US digital material publishers – HE.)
The material licensed consists largely of (but is not limited to) electronic journals and electronic books – irrespective of whether the source digital product owned / subscribed to consists of the whole work (e.g. an E Book or an E Journal issue) or is supplied as a single chapter or as a single article on a “pay-per-view” basis.
Please note that chapters / articles obtained on a pay-per-view basis copied under the terms of the licence are subject to the same requirement for ownership by the HEI rather than by an individual member of staff. This might be of relevance where a supplier offers the option for a purchase to be debited to an institution’s deposit account or a personal credit card.
That which is available for digital use is different from the repertoire of printed books, journals and magazines available for photocopying and / or scanning. HEIs should not assume that because a printed book, journal or magazine has not been subject to exclusion for the purposes of photocopying and / or scanning that the digital product is available for use under the Comprehensive Licence.
Licensees are entitled to rely on any information provided by or through the CLA, especially via its website, to determine whether an item is covered for the purposes of photocopying, scanning and / or digital use.
With a view to supplementing the web based lists of included publishers (noted above), CLA is currently developing a database of titles (for lookup by ISBN / ISSN) that will be made available to HE licensees. Further details will be announced immediately prior to implementation.
Extent Limits (go back)
As noted in the relevant sub section of Section A (see above), the extent limits applicable to printed books, journals and magazines are intended to apply also to digital products (e.g. electronic books and electronic journals).
However, it is recognised that in the digital environment there are some publications that do not conform to a conventional printed “book” or a “journal part”, especially where the item is made available as part of an online database.
For example, some “virtual” journals might not be published with the same Volume No / Part No convention used for printed journals. This will inevitably require licensees to apply commonsense / best judgement – preferably referring any especially problematic examples to CLA.
Digital Use (go back)
Provided the item is included in the available repertoire, the rights and conditions set out in Section C above apply to all Digital Copies, whether derived from scanning of a printed book, journal or magazine or from the copying of a digital source.
The rights to use Digital Material are additional to (and do not detract from) the rights granted in primary licence agreements (such as those issued in line with JISC Model licences such as NESLI) under which an HEI either owns, has access to and / or permission to make further use of a digital item.
However, where the terms of a primary licence do not grant the necessary permissions e.g. to download a Digital Copy to a Virtual Learning Environment, the terms of the CLA licence can be invoked to authorise this activity.
Where the CLA licence is used, the obligations that apply to scanned Digital Copies (e.g. copying activity authorised by a Designated Person only, requirement to append a Copyright Notice, Data Reporting of all Digital Copies, housekeeping etc) are fully applicable.
Conversely, where the digital material copying activity is wholly authorised under the terms of the original or primary licence agreement with the publisher, the Copyright Notice, Data Reporting (and various other obligations) of the CLA HE Licence) do not apply.
Digital Rights Management (go back)
The CLA licence does not authorise an HEI to circumvent technical protection measures (TPMs) or override any Digital Rights Management (DRM) protocols embedded in a digital product.
However, other means may be used to make copies authorised by the CLA Licence, provided that they do not involve circumvention of TPMs or DRMs.
For example, an extract from a digital product covered by the licence may be printed out and then scanned under the scanning provisions of the CLA Licence.
Alternatively a Digital Copy of a chapter from an e book included in the Digital Material element of the CLA Licence may be made by digitally copying one page at a time, including into a different format.
Copyright Notice (go back)
Where the digital source file already incorporates a suitable Copyright Notice provided by the publisher, there is no need to add a Copyright Notice as normally required. Otherwise, a Notice should be added to all editable files in accordance with the form of words set out in Schedule 3.
If it is not technically feasible to add the CLA Copyright Notice into the Digital Copy made under the licence (i.e. the file cannot be edited), the Notice should be linked in such a way that a user must view the Notice before accessing the document.
Data Reporting (go back)
As noted in Section C (see above), all Digital Copies made under licence by copying of digital source material must also be recorded on the Digital Copy Record Sheet (in line with the procedures for reporting Digital Copies produced by scanning).
If a licensee is operating entirely under the terms of a primary licence (for example in enabling students access to a publisher URL that relates to a publication licensed for multiple access), the relevant Digital Copy should not be included on the CLA Digital Copy Record Sheet.
Support Material
Electronic copies of these Guidelines can be downloaded here.
Additionally, a one page A4 ‘Notice for Display’ is also available here. As an alternative, licensees are permitted to incorporate parts of and / or adapt the text of these Guidelines in their own customised versions of posters, notices, guides etc.
