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Library Services

Eresources and websites

Eresources and databases

Cardiff Met holds licenses for all our electronic databases and journals.  

In the majority of cases these resources are made available to Cardiff Met staff and students under strict terms for the purposes of private re​search and study. It is important that you observe the specific terms and conditions for each resource as misuse jeopardises electronic access for the entire university. In particular:  

  • You should not give your username and password to anyone else to enable them to access our e-resources
  • You should not forward copies of any of the information retrieved from the databases to a user who is not authorised to use the resource
  • You must not republish the material in any form (i.e. on the web, in Moodle etc) without specific permission from the copyright owner. If you wish to refer anyone to a specific database or journal article please use a hyperlink instead.

Staff and students are reminded of the IT conditions of use that they have accepted.  

Staff are also encouraged to look at the IT Acceptable Use Policy for further information.

For any additional specific copyright queries regarding e-resources please contact  electronicservices@cardiffmet.ac.uk

Websites

If you want to use material from the Internet you should be aware that, although some web based content is offered freely for you to copy, most is not. Every website will have its own copyright notice where you can check the restrictions on use of its content.  

Live Linking  

It is possible to get around the issue of copyright on websites by projecting pages or playing sound from websites live during a lecture or seminar. This is called "live linking". Live linking to a website is not considered to be copying and you are not infringing copyright law by showing web pages in this way. . 

Use the URL to do this - you can also provide a link to a web page (rather than copying its content) into a Moodle module or Leganto reading list without infringing copyright law.  

Embedding  

Similarly, if you embed a YouTube video or Google map into a blog, you are bringing the original source of that content to your site rather than creating another copy of it and so again this does not contravene copyright. . 

Asking for permission to copy  

What to do if copyright restrictions prevent you from copying and using web content in the way you wanted to:  

  • If the content also exists in printed form you might be able to get a copy that has been cleared for educational use by using the Library's Digitisation Service.
  • You can contact the rights owner directly to ask for permission to use their content.

Further help

For further guidance on anything to do with copyright, please contact centralservices@cardiffmet.ac.uk