Copyright and the Web

Unless the web page expressly waives copyright, you should only download material from it in order to make a single printed copy for your own private study or research for a non-commercial purpose.

In the course of making your own web page(s), you may wish to link to others’ sites. • Always link to the home page if you can as this may carry important information which should not be bypassed, e.g. copyright notices, advertisements. 

• If you feel you need to “deep-link”, i.e. to link direct to a page beyond the homepage, you should obtain written permission from the copyright holder(s).
• Use text links rather than logos/graphics unless you have first obtained written permission to use these as links.
• Do not use frames or other display mechanisms which may give the impression that someone else’s web page is your own work.
• If you are including a link in an e-learning environment, e.g. a VLE (Virtual Learning Environment), draw the VLE users’ attention to any copyright notices on the web pages to which you link.

It is a good idea to protect your own and Staffordshire University's original copyright material on the web with a suitable statement, i.e. © Staffordshire University, [date]. 

Remember though that if the material is very important or valuable, it might be better not to put it on the web at all.