What does the CLA Higher Education Licence permit?

The following information applies to both copyright licences for the Higher Education sector:

  • Make copies from books, magazines, journals, and websites.
  • Share copies with students and staff.
  • Store copies on your intranet.
  • From a book, copy up to one chapter or 10% of the total, whichever is greater.
  • From a journal issue, copy up to two whole articles, or, in some cases, any number of articles – or 10%, whichever is the greater.
  • Extend the value of the licence with access to the Digital Content Store and other CLA digital tools.
  • Copy publications from the UK and international mandate publishers plus 42 international territories.

Make sure your organisation is protected

CLA is recognised by the government as the collective licensing body for the reuse of text and images from books, magazines, journals, and websites.

Higher Education Licence extensions

We have developed HE-specific extensions to the CLA HE licence tailored to the sector’s needs. Get more from the CLA Licence with the following extensions.

SEPS

The Second Extract Permissions Service is our time-saving solution that allows customers to buy additional permissions on a pay-as-you-go basis.

EHESS

Buy copyright fee-paid and high-quality outsourced scans using this streamlined document supply service provided by the British Library and CLA.

Existing users

If you are already registered to use EHESS or SEPS, you can access your account here.

Supporting tools

CLA Check Permissions Tool
The "Check Permissions" feature is available to everyone, even if you don't have a licence. You can use it to verify whether an article, book, or website is subject to the CLA licence.
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DCS CLA Tool
The DCS is a reporting and workflow tool that manages licence reporting and facilitates sourcing, copying, and sharing of content.
View More

Useful links

Licence documents

Higher Education Licence support documents - including DCRF reporting documents and role guidance.

International territories

See the full list of territories that we have agreements with.

Included publishers

The list below shows UK digital material publishers that have opted-in to the Higher Education Licence

Webinars

Keep up to date with our DCS webinars!

OCBS Guidelines

OBCS Guidelines

OCBS Declaration

OCBS Declaration Form 2023-24

Keep up to date

Sign up for one of the CLA newsletters to keep up to date with the latest news and developments in your sector or across CLA.

Higher Education Licence FAQs

Find out more about the Higher Education Licence and how it can protect and support your organisation
Any member of staff can copy under the Licence – but some HEIs do restrict the making of digital copies for course provision to certain members of staff. It depends how your HEI has decided to best manage its obligations under the Licence. If you are not sure, please contact your CLA Licence Co-ordinator or Copyright Advisor.
Our standard licence lets an institution copy an extract from a published work – e.g. a single chapter from a book, two articles from a magazine, or 10% of the total publication. Second Extract Permissions Service offers institutions the option to buy permissions on a pay-as-you-go basis for an additional amount – a ‘second extract’ – e.g. another chapter, two articles, or 10%. Discover more about SEPS here. Additionally, where a journal issue (or a substantial part of it) is devoted to a particular theme, and the journal is not a CCC Electronic Rights-Work, you can copy any number of articles devoted to that particular theme.
Registered students and members of staff - and, if your institution is collaborating with another licensed HE institution on a research project, staff and postgraduate students of that institution (please see our separate guide for more information). Copies made for students in connection with a Course of Study are subject to specific conditions and reporting requirements.
You can copy up to the following amount for each course (or each individual purpose, such as a staff training event or meeting), whichever is the greater:
  • 1 whole chapter from a book
  • 2 whole articles from a magazine/journal issue (or any number of articles, see below)
  • 1 whole scene from a play
  • 1 whole paper from a set of conference proceedings
  • 1 whole report of a single case from a volume of judicial proceedings
  • 1 short story, poem or play (not exceeding 10 pages in length) from an anthology
OR 10% of the total publication. Additionally, where a journal issue (or a substantial part of it) is devoted to a particular theme, and the journal is not a CCC Electronic Rights-Work, you can copy any number of articles devoted to that particular theme. 
The DCS is available to all HEIs with a CLA HE Licence at no extra cost. If you're interested in a product demo, or would like to get started, contact our team on intouch@cla.co.uk

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