Copyright licences

The University has the following licence subscriptions:

  • Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA)
  • Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA)
  • Educational Recording Agency (ERA)

For enquiries relating to licence subscriptions and related procedures, including the submission of reports on scanning distributed to students for teaching purposes, please contact the University’s Licence Co-ordinator Sarah Barkla (cla@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).

For information about the application of copyright law, contact the copyright team at the Bodleian Libraries (copyright@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).

The Copyright Licensing Agency Licence

CLA Licence for the University of Oxford

The University holds a licence with the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA) which, within specified limits, permits the copying and sharing of copyright material for teaching purposes. It is important that you protect yourself, your department, and the University from copyright infringement liability. The following download guides provide a summary of tasks and roles:

If at any time you have any queries about the licence and its operation, please contact your college, departmental or library CLA Licence contact in the first instance or email cla@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Reporting copies

All digital/scanned copies made for teaching purposes must be reported to the CLA.

A report of all scans made between 1 June 2022 and 31 May 2023 should be sent to the University’s Licence Co-ordinator at cla@bodleian.ox.ac.uk by 1 June 2023.

Please note, if your scans are hosted on ORLO (Oxford Reading Lists Online) there is no need to send a separate submission. ORLO will automatically generate a list that the University's Licence Co-ordinator will edit and send to the CLA.

CLA resources

Copyright cover sheets

Educational Recording Agency (ERA)

The ERA licence allows non-profit making educational establishments to record copyrighted protected material produced by its members. A licence is needed to use recordings of programmes as educational resources.

The ERA licence covers all free-to-air (i.e. not encoded or pay-per-view) broadcasts on BBC television and radio, ITV Network services, Channel Four and E4, Five television and S4C. Broadcasts over the internet which are offered at fixed times can also be recorded under the scheme.

Not all broadcasts are covered by the ERA licence, for example some feature films. However, as long as they are only used for non-commercial educational purposes, copyright is not infringed as Section 35 (1) of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act states that works not covered by a certified scheme may be reproduced by educational establishments.

Additional copies can be made for educational use. The ERA licence does not cover the copying of pre-recorded videos, audio tapes, DVDs or CDs.

All recordings made under the licence must be properly labelled. This should include the date (when the recording was made), the name of the broadcaster, the programme title and the wording 'This recording is to be used only for educational and non-commercial purposes under the terms of the ERA Licence'.

Oxford University’s licence number is D225.

Further information can be found on ERA’s website.

Related links