Copyright law
The provisions on copyright can be found in the Swedish Act on Copyright in Literary and Artistic Works (1960:729) (the Copyright Act).
The Copyright Act lays down the rights of writers, composers, artists and other copyright owners to determine how their artistic and literary works may be used. The law primarily protects literary and artistic works, but also provides copyright-like protection for certain creations that are not works, so called neighbouring rights. For a creation to be considered a work according to the Copyright Act, it must be the result of an individual's own personal intellectual creation. The work must be unique in some way, i.e., have a level of originality. Copyright protection extends only to the author's personal expression of the content of the work. The facts and ideas contained within the work are therefore not protected. The copyright protection begins when a work is created and generally lasts for the author's lifetime and 70 years after the year of his or her death. For neighbouring rights, protection generally lasts for 50 years.
The copyright protection grants the copyrights owner exclusive rights which are divided into economic rights and moral rights. The economic rights include the right to reproduce the work and the right to make the work available to the public. Economic rights can be transferred or licensed to others. The moral right is the right of the author to be acknowledged in connection with the exploitation of the work and the right to oppose the modification or making available to the public of the work in a form or context which is offensive to the author's literary or artistic reputation or individuality. The moral rights are not transferable, but the author may waive them.
Copyrights in the context of employment
The main principle in Swedish law is that the rights to copyrighted works created at work primarily belong to the author. However, Swedish doctrine speaks of a general principle, the so called rule of thumb. The principle of rule of thumb means that the employer may, in the absence of clear regulation to the contrary and within its normal operations, utilise the work produced by the employee as a result of official duties towards the employer. For teachers, there is a statutory exception to this rule concerning patentable inventions, see the Act on the Right to Employees' Inventions (1949:345).
Read about what applies at Stockholm University for copyright, patents and certain neighbouring rights and how these rights are distributed between the University and the employee, in the University’s Rulebook: Policy on the management of intellectual property rights at Stockholm University. The Policy is in Swedish.
Making copies
Stockholm University has an agreement with Bonus Copyright Access, which applies to both physical and digital copying as of 2014. This means that teachers and students may, under certain conditions, make copies of literature and make it available to a limited extent. The purpose of the agreement is not to replace the mandatory course literature. Instead, the agreement offers an opportunity to supplement the regular course literature with shorter passages from other literature. Shorter passages are defined as 15% of a work but not more than 15 pages. The literature may only be distributed to teachers and students on the relevant course, it is therefore not allowed to post the literature on the course website. However, it is possible to make copies of the text to students or send it out by e-mail. Alternatively, you can post it on Athena or similar restricted networks where only teachers and students have access. Remember to always acknowledge the author and the source of the material.
For contractual terms and further information, please consult the copying agreement in the University's Rulebook and Bonus Copyright Access’ website. There you will also find a guide on how to use the copying agreement.
Contact us
If you have any questions, please contact the legal counsels at the Division for Legal Affairs.
