A Guide to Working with Integrity as a CBS Student: Copyright

The purpose of copyright is to protect original works (of text, music, image, software, etc.) from illegal use and copying. Copyright defines your legal options when using other people´s works and publications. In that sense, copyright is an important part of the knowledge economy and copyright law gives protection both to the person creating a work and to the work itself.

If you wish to use another person´s work, permission is key. In many cases, permission has already been obtained for you as a CBS student through license agreements between publishers and universities or by general agreements between the Danish universities and Copydan, the Danish copyright authority.

The context in which you use a work is crucial. Is it for private use only, or do you plan to share it with your fellow students or the rest of the world, for instance by making an image publicly available on the internet as a part of your thesis?

 A few facts about copyright

• The copyright always belongs to the person or persons who created the work - whether it is a text, a picture, a lecture, a discussion post, a translation,or something else entirely.  
• A work can have many authors and may consist of several elements such as text, images, etc.
• You may - to a certain extent - copy works for private use.
• You may reproduce protected works if you have received permission from all rights holders (authors, illustrators, publishers, etc.) or if it meets the exemption provisions of the Copyright Act on quotations (citations) and reproduction of works of art. It is your responsibility to obtain the necessary permissions and to investigate whether exemptions are available.  
• CBS has signed an agreement with Copydan to the effect that CBS students are permitted - to a certain extent – to use print materials and images in, among other things, teaching activities and projects.
• Databases and digital resources from CBS Library are not covered by the Copydan They are subjected to individually negotiated licenses that stipulate exactly how they may be used. You are always free to read and cite content but if you want to share it with others, you need to do so by linking to the location rather than sharing the actual PDF file, which in most cases would constitute a violation of the license agreement.

Photocopying and scanning

You may copy from print books for private use and for the use of one fellow student. However, you are not permitted to make copies for multiple people. You may scan from print books but only for private use and you may not share the scanned material in any way, shape, or form.

Sharing

As a CBS student, you have access to a lot of databases, e-journals, and e-books. You may share deep links to online articles from the databases with your fellow students. In the same way, it is legal to link to content that is legally and publicly available on the free web, which means that the person uploading the contents has the legal right to do so and does not themselves violate anybody else´s copyright. However, it is generally a violation of copyright regulations to use social media platforms such as Facebook to upload contents from databases, e-journals, and e-books.

Recording and sharing lectures

You may record lectures for your own use, but you may not share an audio or video recording of a lecture without your lecturer’s consent.  

Images

Images are protected by copyright law, which means that you need to obtain permission to use them.

CBS has signed a framework agreement on the use of images for CBS students with Copydan Billedkunst [Visual Art]. In this agreement, images are understood broadly as pictorial art, drawings, photographs, illustrations, figures, and graphs.

The agreement covers both printed isolated images (that is images not used with a text) as well as digital images that are legally available on the Internet.

The Copydan agreement allows you to

•     copy or print images and use them in handouts or compendia
•     scan or download images and use them in PowerPoint and Word documents, on CBS Canvas, and in similar contexts  

 The Copydan agreement does not allow you to

•     upload images to open internet sites (including the CBS website) or to social media

Images in assignments

If you wish to make use of images in assignments related to your academic work, as a CBS student you are bound by the Framework Agreement. As was described above, according to this agreement you are allowed to use images found on the internet in Word documents or PowerPoint presentations, as long as they are only uploaded to CBS Canvas or similar secure intranets.   

Images in published assignments

If you upload an assignment to a thesis/dissertation repository (such as CBS Student Theses), social media, your personal website, etc. in such a way that the assignment becomes publicly available, you will no longer be covered by the Framework Agreement.

 In this case, you need to comply by either removing the images from the assignment or by contacting the copyright holder to ask for permission to use the images. Alternatively, you can use images from open image databases, where permission is not required.

Using your own images

If you produce an image yourself and if that image features other people, you must remember to obtain consent from the people involved before using it in an assignment. It is always wise to obtain such consent in writing.

Exceptions

The Framework Agreement does not cover images from subscription databases, e-journals and e-books, or images accompanied by text.

Remember credits

The name of the author must be clearly stated in connection with the reproduction of an image. In addition, the image must not be altered to any great extent or be reproduced in a way that would offend the author. Online image websites may allow for use without credit but it is recommended that you leave in the credit nevertheless.  

In grave cases, copyright violations may have both legal and financial repercussions for you personally and for CBS as an organization.

Erik Sonne - es.lib@cbs.dk

Mette Bechmann - mb.lib@cbs.dk