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Can I share educational material on online platforms?
The Copyright Information Point (CIP) receives many interesting questions that could easily be on an exam about Dutch Copyright Law. Here, we'll highlight some of these questions because they're too interesting to keep to ourselves. Today’s question is about sharing WUR’s educational (course) material on online platforms.
The question
Can I share educational material that I receive from my WUR teacher, such as lecture PowerPoints, assignments or guidelines for a course, on online platforms such as studeersnel.nl?
The CIP's answer
As a student you must respect the copyright of the original creators when using texts, images and videos from books, lectures and readers. All educational material you receive during your studies from WUR is copyright protected. For this reason, you may not share lecture slides, handouts, exams or other study materials with others or offer them on websites (e.g. via studeersnel.nl). If you do, you’re infringing the copyright of the copyright holder (WUR), and you may have to pay damages.
For the extended regulations, see the recently updated Student charter 2022-2023 and specifically paragraph 5 Students and copyright on page 7 in the annex Legal protection students.
On a positive note
Luckily, in some cases you may copy or otherwise use texts, images, and videos from others without having permission from the copyright holder. This is the case with the following:
- Use for personal study. You may make some copies of a work for personal use (e.g. study). These copies may not be shared with others.
- Quotations. You may quote short sections of public works in your study assignments or scientific work. This applies to texts, images and videos. The size of the quote should be in proportion to its use in the text. The source and author must always be mentioned. For more information, see these guidelines for citing and referencing.
- Works in the public domain that are no longer subject to copyright because, for example, it has been 70 years since the work's creator died.
Further information and contact
On the webpages of the Copyright Information Point, you can find more information on the various aspects of copyright that we discuss here. If you have any question about copyright law, please feel free to send it to copyright@wur.nl. Don't worry! We'll only write about your question with your permission.