Use of third-party material in teaching and learning
At HKMU, third-party materials are widely used in teaching and learning materials to enrich students' learning experience. Third-party material refers to any material that is not one's own original work. As a general rule, all works fixed in tangible media (written forms, pictures, photographs, films and multimedia) are protected by copyright law.
The copyright policy of the University is to comply with the Copyright Ordinance (Cap. 528) and thereby avoid copyright infringement. Therefore, proper copyright clearance procedures must be followed when reproducing and distributing third-party materials. Requesting permission from copyright owners before using their material also signifies a respect for intellectual property rights, which is essential to ethical academic practice.
There are, however, some circumstances in which copyright clearance is not needed:
Regardless of whether copyright clearance is needed or not, sources of all third-party material should be acknowledged.
