This is a complex area of law and this fact sheet can only outline the basic procedures of copyright licensing. Legal advice should always be taken in financial decisions. The fact sheet covers both the rights of the copyright license holder and the user and lays out the general working principles and practices.

Copyright Benefits

Copyright is essentially a private right. You, the copyright owner must decide how to exploit your copyright work and how to enforce your copyright. A copyright owner can decide whether or not there will be any use of the copyright work falling within the scope of the economic rights and, if so, whether he or she will use the copyright work and/or license one or more other people to use the work.
A copyright owner can also benefit from copyright by selling or agreeing a transfer of copyright to someone else. Many of the options available to a copyright owner will involve contractual agreements which may be just as important as the rights provided by copyright law. The right contractual agreement can minimise the chances of a dispute over use of your copyright work.

Economic Rights

Copyright owners generally have the right to authorise or prohibit any of the following things in relation to their works:
Copying the work in any way. For example, photocopying, reproducing a printed page by handwriting, typing or scanning into a computer, and taping live or recorded music are all forms of copying
Issuing copies of the work to the public. However, once a copy has legally been put into circulation anywhere in the European Economic Area, this right cannot be used to prevent further sale of that copy, although rental and lending of it can still be controlled by the copyright owner
Renting or lending copies of the work to the public. However, some lending of copyright works falls within the Public Lending Right scheme, and this lending does not infringe copyright
Performing, showing or playing the work in public. Obvious examples are performing plays, playing sound recordings and showing films or videos in public. But this right also includes public delivery of lectures, speeches and the like, and letting a broadcast be seen or heard in public also involves performance of music and other copyright material contained in the broadcast
Broadcasting the work or including it in a cable programme service
Making an adaptation of the work, such as by translating a literary or dramatic work, transcribing a musical work and converting a computer program into a different computer language or code

Copyright is infringed when any of the above acts are done without authorisation, whether directly or indirectly and whether the whole or a substantial part of a work, unless what is done falls within the scope of exceptions to copyright permitting certain minor uses of material.

Agreements

Unless a copyright owner is only going to use his or her copyright work him or herself, contracts are likely to be agreed at some point about the copyright work. General law such as company law and competition law may govern what is acceptable in a contractual agreement.

This would cover areas where a partner is needed to help exploit the copyright work; you wish to negotiate the sale or other transfer of the copyright;
Decide to agree a licence with someone else who wants to use the copyright work; would like someone else, such as a collecting society, to administer some or all of the economic rights.

In some cases it might be important to obtain an agreement/contract of confidentiality while negotiating copyright matters, especially if the work has not been published. This could prevent the person you are negotiating with disclosing anything to third parties

Licensing

As a copyright owner, it is for you to decide whether and how to license use of your work. An exclusive licence could be granted, but remember that this enables the licensee to use the copyright work to the exclusion of all others, including the copyright owner. Any licence agreed can relate to one or more of the economic rights you have and can also be limited in time or any other way. It is a contractual agreement between the copyright owner and user. You can use a collective license organisation to
Enforce and collect this license or indeed license through them which is the way most copyright owners work.

The licence should specify what uses of the copyright work it covers. Unless it is a licence covering all possible uses under the economic rights, you will usually need to obtain further permission for additional uses. Generally a copyright owner will only give permission for some uses of a work, e.g. publication of a photograph in a particular newspaper, and if you want to use the work in any other way, e.g. by publishing the photograph in a magazine, you will need to seek further permission.

You may be able to make use of the copyright work beyond the terms of the licence where the use falls within the scope of one of the exceptions to copyright. This does not usually apply where you have agreed to waive the possibility of benefiting from the exceptions in a contract, including a licence agreement, with the copyright owner.
In some cases, you may have only a verbal agreement about a licence to use a work. Or, the licence is only implicit in a broader agreement, such as a commissioning agreement to produce material that is clearly for use in/ by your business. Licences of this sort can be recognised in law, but it is difficult to prove their existence and what uses they cover. It is clearly better to have a licence agreement that is recorded.

Implied Licensing

An implied licence to use a copyright work might arise when there is nothing in writing granting you a licence and you have not even agreed a licence verbally with the copyright owner. In both of those cases you have an explicit licence, although where there is nothing in writing there may, of course, be a disagreement later on about whether there is a licence. It is always better to ensure that any agreement about a licence is recorded in some way. You will only be able to argue that you have an implied licence where all the circumstances suggest that the copyright owner expected you to use his or her copyright material in the way you are going to use it, even though this was never discussed and has not been written down anywhere. Examples where this might be the case are:

Where a copyright work has been commissioned and the commissioning contract does not deal with copyright.

Where you want to use some material you have downloaded from the Internet and the copyright notice on the website does not say what you may and may not do with it. Many people who put their own copyright material on the Internet do so in such a way that they expect people to use it in-house in their business, school, college, university or other organisation, including perhaps on an Intranet, even if they do not specifically say that you can do this. You could therefore argue that the circumstances suggest there is an implied licence to do this. Whether any particular material might be covered by an implied licence is something you will have to judge from the website you found it on, but you cannot argue that you have an implied licence where the material was on the Internet illegally in the first place of course.

Collective Licensing

Copyright owners use licensing agencies to collect their royalties as it is difficult licensing use of their works individually, for example a public performance of music and photocopying of published material. Collecting societies or collective licensing bodies license certain uses of their works on their behalf and collect and distribute the royalties.

Collecting societies are non-profit making private bodies. The way they operate is for members of the organisation (the copyright owners) to make decisions about, having regard to general law such as company and competition law. Copyright owners must generally decide for themselves whether to opt for collective administration or management of their works for any particular uses.

Collective licensing means that a user may be offered a blanket licence covering use of all the repertoire of the collecting society. This also benefits users as they do not need to negotiate a large number of individual licences.
However, collecting societies may effectively be in a monopoly position for some uses of copyright material. An independent Copyright Tribunal, exists to adjudicate on the matter where the collecting society and users or groups representing users fail to agree the terms and conditions of a licensing scheme.

Collective administration bodies exist for licensing, and/or distributing royalties from certain uses of music and sound recordings, printed material, artistic works and characters, broadcast material and TV listings.

Collective Body Licences

If your copyright meets the requirements for licensing and has economic rights there are a range of collective or collecting bodies available. These are regulated so where users or prospective users are unhappy about the terms and conditions offered by collective licensing bodies, they may be able to seek independent adjudication on the matter from The Copyright Tribunal. There are many other organisations representing right holders that may be able to help you find out how to get a licence and you should also contact organisations representing users.

Artistic works

Licences for use of much artistic material may be available from the Design and Artists Collecting Society (DACS)
Copyright Promotions and The Copyrights Group licenses use of a number of characters

Broadcasting

The Educational Recording Agency licenses the recording off-air by educational establishments for educational purposes of much broadcast material
Open University Worldwide licenses the recording off-air by educational establishments for educational purposes of Open University programmes

In other cases you will need to approach the right broadcaster for permission to use the material. You should note that you will usually need to get permission from the owners of copyright in the content of a broadcast as well as the broadcast itself, for example content such as music, films, sound recordings, literary works and so on, although the broadcaster should be able to tell you whether this is necessary. Before seeking a license, though, you might in particular like to see whether the private use exception covering time-shifting, the exception covering fair dealing for reporting current events or the exception applying to playing music and showing films in public by playing or showing a broadcast might apply to what you want to do.

Films

Filmbank may be able to license a non-theatrical showing of a film in public in such places as clubs, coaches, restaurants, village halls and schools unless for for educational purposes.
ComPact Collections may be be able to help license cable retransmission rights on behalf of producers.
Video Performance Limited licenses certain uses of music videos.

In other cases you will need to approach the owner of rights in the film, often the producer or UK distributor, for permission to use the material. You should note that you may need to get permission from the owners of copyright in the content of a film as well, particularly those who own rights in the music. Before seeking a licence, though, you might in particular like to see whether the exception covering fair dealing for reporting current events or the exception applying to playing music and showing films in public by playing or showing a broadcast might apply to what you want to do.

Music and Sound Recordings

Public performance, broadcasting and use in a cable programme of most music is licensed by the Performing Right Society (PRS),
Making mechanical copies (recording) music is licensed by the Mechanical-Copyright Protection Society (MCPS). also licences public performance and broadcasting of library music;
Public performance, broadcasting, use in a cable programme and making mechanical copies (dubbing) of sound recordings is licensed by Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL);
Public performance and broadcasting of music videos is licensed by Video Performance Limited (VPL);
Copying of religious music is licensed by Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI).

Where you wish to use a sound recording, you may need a licence for use of the music recorded on it as well.

Printed material

Photocopying, digitisation and some other uses of much literary material is licensed by the Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA). Copying of some artistic works may be included;
Other use of artistic works may be licensed by the Design and Artists Copyright Society (DACS);
Photocopying of many newspapers is licensed by the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA);
The Authors Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) may be able to help with other licences from authors;
The Publishers Licensing Society (PLS) may be able to help with other licences from publishers;
Use of some TV programme listings is licensed by Broadcasting Dataservices;
Copying of religious music is licensed by Christian Copyright Licensing International (CCLI).