dcf.cymru stimulus sheet · Art and Music · Years 9–11

Copyright and licence facts

Keep this sheet beside you. Every answer you give must point at a fact on it.

1. UK copyright is automatic

You do not apply for copyright and you do not pay for it. The moment you finish an original drawing, painting, photograph, song, recording or piece of writing, you own the copyright in it. There is no register of copyright works in the UK, and adding © does not change how much protection you have — it only makes ownership obvious.

copying your work;
distributing copies, free or for sale;
renting or lending copies;
performing, showing or playing it in public;
making an adaptation of it — a remix, a collage, a tracing, a cover version, a translation;
putting it on the internet.

This is the rule people get wrong: changing a work does not make it yours. An adaptation of someone else's work (often called a derivative work) is one of the acts copyright controls, so it still needs permission or a licence. "I changed it by 20 per cent" is not a rule and has never been one.

2. How long UK copyright lasts

Type of work	How long copyright usually lasts
Written, dramatic, musical and artistic work (paintings, drawings, photographs, sculpture, songs as written)	70 years after the author's death
Sound and music recording	70 years from when it is first published
Films	70 years after the death of the director, screenplay author and composer
Broadcasts	50 years from when it is first broadcast
Layout of a published edition (the typesetting of a book page)	25 years from when it is first published

Counting rule: the clock runs to the end of the calendar year, then the period is added. An artist who died in 1939 keeps copyright in their paintings until 31 December 2009; from 1 January 2010 those paintings are in the public domain.

3. Exceptions: the narrow gaps in copyright

UK law allows a few uses without permission. Each one is limited, and most require "fair dealing" — using no more than you need, in a way that does not damage the owner's market.

Illustration for instruction — a teacher or pupil may use a work to make or explain a point in teaching and assessment, including in a sketchbook or exam portfolio. It does not let the school publish the work to the world.
Quotation — a short extract, with acknowledgement, where quoting is justified.
Caricature, parody or pastiche — genuine comic or imitative reworking, still limited by fair dealing.
Non-commercial research and private study.
Text and data mining for non-commercial research only.

None of these exceptions let you sell the result, and none of them cover putting a full copy of somebody's artwork on a public website.

4. Creative Commons: permission given in advance

A Creative Commons (CC) licence does not replace copyright. The creator still owns the work; they have simply published standing permission so nobody has to write and ask. There are six licences. All six require attribution.

Licence	What a re-user may do	The catch
CC BY	Copy, share, remix, adapt, build on it, in any medium, including for commercial use.	Credit the creator.
CC BY-SA	Everything CC BY allows, including commercial use and adaptations.	Credit, and release your adaptation under the same or a compatible licence (ShareAlike).
CC BY-NC	Copy, share, remix and adapt — but for non-commercial purposes only.	Credit, and no use primarily aimed at commercial advantage or money.
CC BY-ND	Copy and share the whole, unchanged work, in any medium, including commercially.	Credit, and no adaptations may be shared — no cropping, recolouring, sampling or remixing.
CC BY-NC-SA	Share and adapt for non-commercial purposes.	Credit, non-commercial, and ShareAlike on adaptations.
CC BY-NC-ND	Copy and share the whole, unchanged work, non-commercially. The most restrictive CC licence.	Credit, non-commercial, no adaptations.

CC0 is not a licence. It is a public domain dedication: the creator gives up their rights as far as the law allows, so you may use the work for anything, commercially, without asking and without crediting. Crediting anyway is good manners, not a condition.

5. Writing an attribution (the TASL pattern)

A usable credit names four things: Title, Author, Source and Licence — and says what you changed.

"Cwm Idwal at Dawn" by Rhiannon Elis, from Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: cropped to a square and converted to greyscale. This adaptation is also released CC BY-SA 4.0.

6. Three traps

"Found on a search engine" is not a source. The search results page did not make the image and cannot license it to you.
A photograph of an old painting is a separate thing from the painting. The painting may be out of copyright while the museum's photograph of it, and the terms on their website, still control how you may reuse that particular file. Check the licence the museum publishes next to the image.