No. In the UK, copyright is automatic. As soon as you write down your thoughts, record music, or complete an artwork, it is protected. The Government’s How to copyright protects your work page, covers this and states “You can mark your work with the copyright symbol (©), your name and the year of creation. Whether you mark the work or not does not affect the level of protection you have”.   

They are related but different. Plagiarism is a form of academic misconduct; 'Reproducing in any work submitted for assessment or review (for example, examination answers, essays, project reports, presentations, dissertations or theses) any material derived from work authored by another without clearly acknowledging the source. Presenting work copied directly from another student without their knowledge’. 

Whereas copyright is a legal issue, using someone else's work without their permission. You can cite a source perfectly to avoid plagiarism but still infringe copyright if you reproduce a substantial part of it without a licence. 

Yes. Almost everything on the internet and social media is protected by copyright unless it explicitly says otherwise, such as a Creative Commons licence; or is very old and is in the Public Domain. Just because it is free to view doesn't mean it is free to copy or re-use.   

Under Fair Dealing you are unable to use someone else’s work in a way that stops them from selling the work or making use of it in the way they want to. So, even if you aren't making money out of the use, it can still be an infringement if it affects the owner's ability to control or sell their work. 

While UK law allows some Fair Dealing for research and private study, it does not give you a free pass just because your project is non-commercial. 

Current UK law generally does not grant copyright to works generated solely by AI. According to the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (Section 9(3)), the author of computer-generated work is “the author shall be taken to be the person by whom the arrangements necessary for the creation of the work are undertaken”. Essentially, the more human 'arrangement' and creative direction you provide, the stronger your potential claim to the work.  

This was put into law before the growth of AI and hasn’t been tested in court, because this is an evolving area of law, we recommend keeping a record of the prompts you use. AI tools will have their own policies and information on this, be sure look at those of the tool that you have used.  

Note that most publishers now have specific policies requiring you to disclose the use of AI, the Academic Publishers position section our Generative AI pages have links to the guidance. The pages also have information on the Generative AI Delegation Taxonomy (GAIDeT) which researchers are using to standardise declarations of GenAI use. 

Uploading a full PDF of a journal article into a public AI tool to summarise or analyse them is often a breach of our institutional license. 

Most University Library resources, such as articles and books, have licenses which prohibit uploading text into public AI tools. Doing so could breach our agreements with publishers. 

Many free AI tools use your inputs to train their models. Uploading your published or unpublished research, data, or draft chapters could result in your intellectual property being absorbed into the public domain, potentially jeopardizing future patents or publication rights. 

The subscription and enterprise versions of GenAI tools have options to not use data uploaded to train and add to their models. To be safe you will need to read the terms of conditions and licences and ensure that you are using the correct settings within the tool.  

It is best to avoid posting images on social media. While sharing a short quote for quotation, criticism or review (e.g., your thoughts on a theory) is often considered Fair Dealing, posting a full image, chart, or long extract of text is riskier. Most textbooks and journals are commercial products and sharing them publicly can infringe on the publisher's rights. 

Instead, share the Permalink from LibrarySearch or the 'Share Item' link from your Reading List. Most of our eBooks allow you to link directly to specific chapters. 

Unfortunately, not. UK copyright law allows you to make one copy for your own research or private study, but this doesn't extend to distributing it to others, even in a private group. 

Instead, you can share links to resources from LibrarySearch (look for the permalink) button or Reading list (three dots and share item). Many of the eBooks the library has access to will allow you to share a link to a specific chapter or page. 

If your assignment is only being submitted to Moodle for your tutors to see, you are generally covered by the Illustration for Instruction exception. However, if you plan to include your work in a public portfolio or on YouTube later, you must obtain permission, as the 'Illustration for Instruction' exception only applies to private academic submission.   

Generally, no. Embedding a video using the official YouTube Embed code is usually considered linking rather than copying. 

Avoid embedding or linking to content that appears to be an illegal upload (e.g., a full BBC documentary uploaded by a random user), as this can still lead to copyright issues. 

http://__replace__.meCiting a source avoids plagiarism, but it does not provide the legal permission required to use the image.  

To stay safe, look for images with a Creative Commons (CC) licence. We have a page on Finding and sharing content online, which covers sites that can be used to find copyright cleared images. Use the ‘Usage Rights’ filter on Google Images to find Creative Commons content, or use sites like Creative Commons Search, Wikimedia Commons or Unsplash. 

While you own your own notes, the lecture slides, handouts, and exam questions are the copyright of the University of Kent, see the Intellectual Property Policy, Appendix 3.1 Copyright – Teaching Materials.  

Uploading University-owned materials (like exam papers or staff-created slides) to these sites is a breach of the Intellectual Property Policy and can lead to disciplinary action. 

While you can use AI to help organise your thoughts, the output's copyright remains legally 'grey.' More importantly, at Kent, the focus is on Academic Integrity. If an AI summarizes a paper for you, you must still cite the original source. Passing off AI-generated summaries as your own synthesis is considered academic misconduct  

To be safe, always check the specific terms of the tool you are using. Remember that anything you upload must be your own work; uploading text from your lecturers or library resources may breach copyright and institutional licenses. Most importantly, consult your module convenors guidance to ensure you are declaring your use of AI transparently. 

The University of Kent requires PhD theses to be deposited in Kent Academic Repository (KAR). A Creative Commons license tells readers exactly how they can use, share, and build upon your research without needing to email you for permission every single time. It ensures you get credit and attribution while promoting Open Access.   

The NC restriction means others cannot use your thesis for commercial purposes. 

So, a third-party couldn’t put parts of your thesis on a commercial website or put it into a book. They could still get in touch with you if they thought your ideas were profitable and wanted to collaborate. 

A 'grey area' occurs when educational resources involve some commercial element—for example, if your work were included in a textbook that is sold for profit or a platform supported by advertising. If you want to ensure your work is used by as many educators as possible, NC can sometimes act as an accidental barrier. 

If your primary goal is to generate impact, you want to remove as many hurdles to this as possible. Therefore, choose the most open licence CC BY (Attribution). 

This is the most open license. It allows other researchers to include your diagrams in their papers, translate your chapters for international journals, and use your data in their analysis —all while being legally required to cite you. 

While this provides the most freedom for others to use your work, it also means you have less control over the context of that use, provided you are credited. 

If you believe in the philosophy of ‘copyleft’, where what is free must stay free. The licence to choose would be CC BY-SA (Attribution-ShareAlike). 

This model is commonly found on Wikipedia. If someone takes your work and adapts it, they must release their new version under the same license. It prevents anyone from taking your open research and closing it in a future derivative work. 

Technically, the ND (No Derivatives) restriction prevents anyone from remixing, transforming, or translating your work. Because a translation is legally considered a 'derivative work,' an ND license would prevent your research from being translated into other languages without your explicit, separate permission 

The ND licence provides strict rights on the reuse of content, preventing other researchers from building on your research through adapting images or charts. A researcher could contact you to seek authorisation for adapting the research, the fact that they would have to request permission might lead them to utilise different sources. 

According to the Creative Commons blogpost Why Sharing Academic Publications Under “No Derivatives” Licenses is Misguided,: 

“Articles published under an ND license are not considered OA, as first defined  in the Budapest Open Access Initiative and in its 2012 recommendations”. 

Most academic publishers do not treat a thesis in an institutional repository (such as KAR) as prior publication, so it should not prevent you publishing a book or journal article later. 

Your chosen licence affects how others can use your work. A Non-Commercial (NC) licence can help protect against others profiting from your thesis before you do. 

Practices vary by discipline, so it is worth checking publisher policies in your field (e.g. via our Open Access Book Search tool). 

If you are planning to publish soon, you can apply an embargo. While embargoed, the full text is not publicly available and the licence is effectively inactive. 

See our guidance on restricting access to your thesis for more details. 

You may be able to include images in your thesis under the UK ‘fair dealing’ exception, which allows limited use of copyright material for purposes such as quotation, criticism, or review. For example, using a single screenshot or a low-resolution image may be considered fair. 

This supports a risk-managed approach when making your thesis available in KAR for educational (non-commercial) use. See our guidance on copyright or sensitive material in your thesis for how to check copyright status and clear content. 

However, requirements are stricter for commercial publishing. Images used under fair dealing or cleared for educational use will usually need permission again if you publish a book, as this is a commercial context. 

Not necessarily, images found on the internet are not always free to use. Before using one, you must check its licence: 

• Creative Commons: Usually free to use, provided you follow the specific attribution requirements 

• All Rights Reserved: If the image doesn't fall under a specific legal exception (like Fair Dealing), you must obtain written permission from the copyright holder 

• Public Domain: If the copyright has expired, the image is free to use 

Fair Dealing for the purpose of quotation often covers short extracts of text, but it is much riskier for "artistic works" like photos, maps, or technical diagrams. Because a diagram is often considered a "complete work" in its own right, publishers almost always require you to get formal permission from the copyright holder rather than relying on Fair Dealing exceptions.   

This is a nuanced area involving both copyright and research ethics. While a short text quote may fall under Fair Dealing, the content is still owned by the creator.  

• Public Accounts: You can generally quote a public post, provided you attribute it correctly and link to the original source. 

• Private Accounts: You must seek explicit permission from the creator. 

• Ethical Note: Beyond copyright, you should consider whether quoting the user puts them at risk or breaches their privacy, especially in sensitive research areas. 

This is an Orphan Work. To use it, you must perform—and document—a "diligent search" to locate the rights holder. If the owner remains untraceable, contact the Library Research Support team. We can help you assess the level of risk or guide you through the Orphan Works Licensing Scheme.   

  Copyright is usually held jointly by all authors. At Kent, the Intellectual Property Policy confirms that the University does not claim copyright in your scholarly output. However, you must ensure all co-authors are aligned on the choice of Creative Commons license and are aware of Kent’s Author Rights Retention policy before submission to ensure the final manuscript can be shared openly.   

• Standard Practice: Articles and conference proceedings should be published under a CC BY (Attribution) license whenever possible

• Funder Requirements: If your research is funded (e.g., by UKRI or Wellcome), they almost always mandate a CC BY license

• Institutional Support: Under Kent’s Author Rights Retention policy, your Author Accepted Manuscript (AAM) is made available in the Kent Academic Repository (KAR) under a CC BY license, supported by a specific statement in your acknowledgments

• REF Policy: While the REF has a "strong preference" for CC BY, it currently permits more restrictive licenses like CC BY-NC-ND

For further information see our explanation of the Creative Commons licences.     

Under the Intellectual Property Policy  at Kent “the University does not claim copyright in scholarly output per se produced by staff or students in the course of their employment or research work”.  

When your research is published in a traditional journal you generally enter into an agreement with the publisher, therefore it depends on the agreement you signed: 

• Traditional Publishing: You often sign a "Copyright Transfer Agreement," which moves the rights from you to the publisher. 

• Open Access: In many OA models, you retain copyright and simply grant the publisher a license to distribute the work. 

• The Rights Retention Advantage: By adding the Author Rights Retention statement to your acknowledgments upon submission, you retain the right to share your AAM under a CC BY license, even if you publish in a traditional, non-OA journal. 

Not necessarily; you need to check the terms of the agreement you are signing with the publisher. Although the NC element of the licence states that your work cannot be re-used for commercial purposes, this may not apply to the company you are publishing with. Clauses within your agreement with the publisher may require you to grant to them the right to produce, reproduce, adapt, alter, store, market, exploit, communicate, rent, sell, distribute and display your work or any part of it in the future.     

  You need to check the terms of the agreement you signed with the publisher. You may have assigned the copyright to them in which case you cannot re-produce the work anywhere else. Even if the agreement gave you re-use rights and stated that you could reproduce your work in another subsequent publication, these rights have probably been described as non-transferrable. Because a CC BY licence passes on the right to future readers to re-use work, the terms of your original agreement that state your re-use rights are non-transferrable will prevent you from publishing your original work in a later OA publication.     

ResearchGate contains thousands of articles, but many have been uploaded in violation of the licenses researchers signed with their publishers. Whether you can upload a full PDF depends on your publisher’s "self-archiving" policy: 

• Check the Policy: Use the JISC Open Policy Finder to see what is permitted for your specific journal. You can search by DOI or title to see the rules for submitted, accepted, and published versions 

• Commercial Repositories: ResearchGate and Academia.edu are considered commercial repositories. Many publishers allow you to share your work on a personal or institutional website (like KAR) but forbid uploading it to commercial sites 

• The Safe Way: It is always safe to create a profile and list your publications, but instead of uploading the PDF, provide a link to the publisher's site or the permanent record in KAR 

Yes, you are encouraged to share your research with your students, provided you do so without infringing copyright: 

• Link, Don't Upload: Avoid uploading the PDF directly to Moodle. Instead, provide a hyperlink to the article 

• Use Reading Lists: The most effective way is to add the research to your digital Reading List. This ensures students can access the library-licensed version seamlessly 

• Request a Scan: If the article is not available online, you can Request a CLA scan for your module through Library Services 

Not necessarily. While you should always be cautious of phishing, you should not ignore these emails. Many legitimate stock photo agencies use automated software to scan the web for unlicensed use. However, some "speculative invoicing" firms send out thousands of demands that may not have a solid legal basis.  

• Action: Do not pay anything or click on suspicious links immediately 

• Next Step: Forward the email to copyright@kent.ac.uk. We can help you verify if the claim is legitimate, check if the use was covered by a "Fair Dealing" exception, and advise on the next steps 

Removing the image is a vital first step to "stop the clock" on any ongoing infringement, but it does not automatically cancel a claim for past use. In the eyes of the law, the act of infringement has already occurred. 

• Risk Management: While removal shows ‘good faith,’ some agencies will still pursue a fee for the period the image was live 

• Support: Before responding to the agency or agreeing to a settlement, contact copyright@kent.ac.uk. We can help you verify if the claim is legitimate and advise on the next steps