Copyright Act

The Copyright Act spells out and protects the rights of the creators of original works, as soon as the work is fixed in a tangible format. 

Fair Use 

Fair Use (17 U.S.C. § 107) doctrine is a set of exceptions to the copyright law, when copyrighted works are used under certain circumstances, particularly in educational settings. There are no hard and fast rules for determining what is considered a "fair use." Instead there are four factors that must be weighed when deciding whether to use copyrighted works for educational purposes, when you do not have explicit permission from the copyrights holder. 

• the purpose and character of the use;
• the nature of the work;
• the amount and substantiality of the work; and
• the effect on the potential market. 

 

TEACH Act 

The Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization (“TEACH”) Act was enacted in November 2002 as an amendment to the Copyright Act of 1976. Under the Teach Act, instructors who teach at accredited, nonprofit U.S. educational institutions and meet 17 explicit criteria are permitted to make certain copyright-protected materials available online to students, without having to obtain permission from the copyright holder. The TEACH Act’s exemptions are intended for distance learning purposes only. 

Institutional Responsibilities:

1. The institution is a nonprofit accredited educational institution.
2. The institution has a policy on the use of copyrighted materials. OC's Copyright Policy can be found at this link. 
3. The institution provides accurate information to students and employees about copyright.
4. The institution's systems will not interfere with the technological controls within the materials that will be used.

Faculty Responsibilities:

1. The material must be provided at the direction of or under the supervision of an instructor and must be an integral part of the course curriculum (i.e., not merely entertainment or unrelated background material).
2. Only the students enrolled in the online class will have access to the materials and they will be stored on a secure server.
3. The amount of material provided must be comparable to that typically displayed in a live classroom session. For certain works, the display of the entire work could be consistent with displays typically made in a live classroom setting (e.g., short poems or essays, or photographic images). Distribution of entire textbooks, course-packs or supplemental readings would not be authorized under the TEACH Act.
4. You must provide notice to students that materials distributed in the course may be subject to copyright protection.

See The Original TEACH Act Toolkit from Louisiana State University Library for more information. 

What can I post in Canvas?

Here are a few tips and best practices for following copyright guidelines when using Canvas or other learning management systems.  Because content is only visible to current students and protected by a password, these guidelines are different than when posting on a public website.  

In general:

• Follow Fair Use guidelines, i.e., excerpts of copyright works that are “in support of curriculum-based instructional activity.” When in doubt, use the ALA’s interactive Fair Use Evaluator.
• Attribute copyright text and images to the original creator and copyright holder (if different), whenever possible. 
• Link to outside websites rather than embedding or excerpting from them.

Articles and book chapters:

• Get permission before posting – You must secure copyright permissions prior to posting content. Reposting of the same material for use in a subsequent quarter requires a new permission.
• Link to articles or ebooks available in OC Libraries' digital resources.  Learn how to link directly to articles in databases.
• Limit articles to one per journal issue and book chapters to one per book. 

Video and audio:

• Embed only relevant clips from the portion of the longer work;
• Link to longer audiovisual works and any works not obtained from the Library's online resources.

Images:

• Use no more than 10% of the images in a published work, with a maximum of 15 from any single publication;
• Some images, such as company logos, are protected by trademark rather than copyright; attribute these images to the trademark holder.

For more information, see Using Course Management Systems: Guidelines and Best Practices for Copyright Compliance from the Copyright Clearance Center.

Copyright Statement

Here is a possible statement to include on or with each document that you are providing in Canvas if you do not have permission from the publisher or author.

“This scan of copyrighted material is for your personal use only, for the duration of this course. Please discard this copy once the course has ended, and do not share, reproduce, or sell it.”

Online Alternatives

When it comes to previously-planned physical texts and course reserves materials, we are encouraging a motto of “first alternatives, then equivalents.”  We encourage all instructors to consider online alternatives to planned physical course texts and DVDs — alternatives include open textbooks, journals and articles, and e-books and streaming media already licensed by OC.

• Use OneSearch.  After entering your search term, you can limit Availability to Available Online and Open Access. 
• Search for EBSCO eBooks.  Note: some titles only allow for one user at a time. Contact Amy Herman (aherman@olympic.edu) with title requests.
• Streaming videos from Kanopy and Swank – contact Amy Herman (aherman@olympic.edu) with title requests for feature films and documentaries.
• Look for Open Educational Resources (OER.)  Our OER guide provides some resources for various subjects, but librarians can help you locate OER to meet your needs.  
• Contact libraryfaculty@olympic.edu for assistance in finding alternatives or equivalents when possible. 

Additional Resources

Have questions? Contact libraryfaculty@olympic.edu.