Copyright Licensing Agency

Description

This Voluntary Ex-Ante Transparency (VEAT) relates to the annual licence renewal for the Copyright Licensing Agency (the CLA) Higher Education Licence which is an essential part of the licensing landscape. The University is proposing to renew their contract with the CLA for a period of four years to enable staff and students to continue to make copies from in copyright works within clearly defined legal limits. Lot 1: This Voluntary Ex-Ante Transparency (VEAT) relates to the annual licence renewal for the Copyright Licensing Agency (the CLA) Higher Education Licence which is an essential part of the licensing landscape. The University is proposing to renew their contract with the CLA for a period of four years to enable staff and students to continue to make copies from in copyright works within clearly defined legal limits. The CLA are the only collective licensing agency in the UK for these types of materials and are defined by the UK government as below: "you need a licence from the Copyright Licencing Agency (CLA) if you represent a business, a public sector organisation, or an educational establishment and you want to make copies of content protected by copyright. Making copies includes photocopying, faxing, scanning and emailing." Copyright Licensing Agency licence - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) As a collective licensing agency, the CLA acts on behalf of a substantial number of owners and/or mandating publishers of licensed material (e.g. books, journal, publications etc) and grants a licence for the reproduction and use of this material by staff and students of the University. It covers the photocopying and scanning of licensed material and the copying, storage, communication and use of digital copies and borne digital material. The licence also provides a warranty and an indemnity for such reproduction and use. The CLA licence is fundamental to staff and students, to research and teaching. It enables copies to be made from content we possess in a way that is legal and safe. The CLA licence covers all UOB students with recent service developments meaning the licence has recently been extended to enable use of digitised materials/ copies by our transnational students across the world. The CLA have engaged extensively with the sector to ensure the licence adapts to meet the needs of the sector and represents value for money. The overseas extension is one example but for 2024-27 licence there is an additional benefit to enable sharing between UK research collaborations which has been a long standing issue. Failure to renew the licence will adversely impact all teaching and learning activity across the University. It would require a detailed risk assessment to gauge the level of copying taking place across the whole institution (including overseas sites) and would necessitate the implementation of comprehensive rights management and clearance process.  Such an audit and workflow development would take years to implement and would require investment far above the cost of the CLA renewal. It would also require the University to acquire a significant level of reputational, financial and legal risk. The CLA also administer the NLA licence (Newspaper Licensing Agency). The NLA are the collective licensing agency for newspaper and magazine publishers- the only such organisation. The NLA licence allows teaching and research uses as above, but also includes the ability for professional services teams to create clippings for use in market monitoring services.