Chris Morrison has proved his copyright credentials by winning an award for best dissertation on his Master’s degree course.

Chris, our Copyright, Software Licensing and IS Policy Manager, has graduated with a Master of Arts in UK, EU and US Copyright Law at King’s College London. He passed the course with distinction and was awarded The Dickson Poon School of Law Prize for best dissertation, at his graduation ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall, London.

Chris’ dissertation, now available on the Kent Academic Repository was titled ‘Illustration for Instruction and the UK Higher Education Sector: Perceptions of risk and sources of authority’.

Chris said: ‘The dissertation is the culmination of my work and interest in copyright. At the end of my study, I realised that I knew a lot about the legal side of copyright but not so much about how it affects us in education. My dissertation aims to provide some clarity in this area.’

Chris has worked in copyright most of his working life – first for PRS for Music and then as Copyright Assurance Manager at the British Library. He joined Kent in 2015, becoming our first dedicated copyright manager.

At Kent, he has continued to champion all things copyright – for example, as a member of the Universities UK/GuildHE Copyright Negotiating and Advisory Committee, co-organising an annual ‘Icepops’ conference and co-authoring a regular blog on copyright.

He is currently finalising the Kent Copyright Literacy Strategy, the first of its kind among UK universities and regularly presents ‘Copyright the Card Game’ sessions for Kent colleagues. The next session is on Monday 23 March.

Chris remains a passionate advocate for the importance of copyright: ‘Copyright matters because everybody is a creator these days – but similarly everybody uses other people’s material. As an education institution, it is important that we do things the right way.’