Copyright when you are a student

When you use a work

Regarding teaching materials

Remember to only use litterature and other materials that are legal.

These can be materials provided by your teacher, materials you access through DTU Library, materials that the rights holder has made available online under an Open License, or materials you buy from bookstores like Polyteknisk Boghandel.

Avoid buying pirated materials that you get offered for instance via Facebook other platforms.

Text and images

You copy other people’s works when you use their texts, images, logos, etc.

As a student at DTU, you may in an educational context use other people’s printed texts, images, and make copies of these without having to contact each individual creator. Normally, you would need permission from the creator to use their material, but DTU has agreements with rights holders regarding this use.

Recording video and audio

You may scan or copy from books and journals for your own use, but not for others.
You may not forward files that you only have access to because you are a student at DTU (for example, journal articles and e-books).

When you create a work

Written reports and final projects

Quotations and citing others is an important part of scientific work. When you write assignments, reports, presentations, and projects, you are the author of these, but often you will use material created by others. You are allowed to do so, but it is important to cite correctly to avoid plagiarism.

Here's how to correctly cite texts and/or use images:

YOU MAY

Quote text from other peoples works with clear source references. For example, you can cite a scientific article like this:

[Author], [(Publication Year)], [Title], [Journal Title] [Volume/Issue], [Page Numbers], [DOI].
Quote from publicly accessible web pages with clear source references (for an online article, you can cite it like this:

[Author], [Article Title], [Date you visited the page], [URL]).
Generally use images, photographs, and paintings where more than 70 years have passed since the creator’s death (the copyright has expired)
Use images where the rights holder has already given permission for them to be used in accordance with, for example, Creative Commons licenses.

YOU MAY NOT

Copy other people’s texts and publish them as your own. This is plagiarism.
Quote more than a modest portion of the cited work (e.g., a sentence or paragraph, not an entire chapter).
Use images for illustration in an assignment, such as cartoon characters (and graphic engineering drawings), without permission from the rights holder

If you do an exam project with a company

Many DTU students work on exam projects with companies (e.g., a master’s thesis or another type of exam project).

As a starting point, you, as the author, hold the copyright to your report or thesis, but often the company places requirements in the contract regarding how you can use or share your report. Be especially aware that:

It may be a condition for the project to proceed that the rights to your written output are transferred to the company.
If you agreed with the company that your project will be kept confidential, you should check the box "Fortroligt/Confidential", when you return/upload your written report to DTU Learn.

Contact

The copyright group at DTU ophavsret@dtu.dk

Software

As a student, you automatically hold the copyright to the software you develop yourself.

When you use compilers, code, or materials from others in your software, they may be subject to terms, and you should be aware that this can affect how your software can be utilized subsequently.

If you participate in one of DTU’s research projects, you will often be asked to transfer your copyright to the software so that DTU can comply with its agreements with other participants in the project.

Avoid plagiarism

“To plagiarize” means to use someone else’s text, results, ideas, images, structures, data, etc., as one’s own without providing precise source references.

Plagiarism is considered cheating in exams.

How to avoid plagiarism