All University of Surrey staff and students need to be aware of the main points of copyright law. These pages provide practical guidance on copyright compliance: they are for information only and are not intended as legal advice.

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and subsidiary legislation prohibit copying without permission from works protected by copyright, including material published on the Internet.  There are, however, a number of exceptions which allow you to copy without permission of which the most important for library users is the 'fair dealing' exception for copying for research and private study.