Can I include other people’s images and materials in my PowerPoint presentations? What if I want to provide copies of the presentation to my students? Or post something on my website or online classroom?

Generally, you may include other people’s works in your classroom presentations without having to get permission or pay a fee provided there’s no commercial version available. Under the educational exemption in the Copyright Act, you may make copies of works to display in class on University premises for educational purposes provided there is no commercially available version of the work in a medium that is appropriate for the purpose.

However, the exemption only covers display in class on campus. It does not allow you to make copies and hand those copies out to students. It would also not cover uploading slides to the web or Queen's Learning Managment System sites like onQ. Please refer to Copyright in the Digital Classroom section of this FAQ or the Copyrighted Materials On The Internet page in our Copyright and Teaching Guide for more information.

Similarly, if you want to include works in a PowerPoint presentation outside of the University, for example, to a community forum, or post the presentation online or even in an online course, all of these fall outside the ‘display on campus’ requirement, so you may only do so if you fall within the fair dealing exemption or have permission from the copyright owner.

Copyright in the Campus Classroom