Potential use under the educational statutory licence (S113P)

The educational statutory licence is an exception in the Copyright Act 1968 that allows the University to make use of certain copyright materials.

The Copyright Agency has announced limited use of materials covered by the statutory licence will be allowable with certain genAI tools. This licence would, therefore, potentially cover some materials not already included in publisher agreements around genAI (detailed in the accordion above), but only for the “educational purposes” of the University.

The statutory licence also places limitations on the amounts of material that can be used, usually 1 chapter or 10% of a work, or 1 article per issue of a journal. It does not allow for the use of an entire ebook or for some types of copyright material.

There is a further restriction of the statutory licence only applying where use is made of materials with 'closed' tools / enterprise access, where data-security is in place. For the University, this would be our access to Microsoft Copilot.

Note that materials used under the statutory licence will also require some form of attribution/referencing.

Distinctions around student use of copyright materials with genAI in courses and assessments have, as yet, not been confirmed with the Copyright Agency. There is potential that, where students are directed to use genAI as part of coursework or assessment, the use could become reliant on the statutory licence rather than fair dealing (as outlined in the accordion directly below). As a result, students should be directed to use Copilot over other tools to help assist with compliance around the licence.

AI Tools guide: Issues and considerations

Have a question? Contact the Copyright Advisor