The director of the college print shop has come to me for copyright assistance. Our faculty often ask for photocopies of materials for distribution to students in class. She asks the faculty member if they have the appropriate permissions for making copies but is not always convinced by their answers.
This question seems simple, but it actually involves some high-end concepts of business law and liability.[1]
A teacher would like to reprint a student workbook we can no longer find in print. We tried to get permission from the company that bought the publisher out, but they said they couldn’t help. At this point, can we prove that we have made a good faith effort to receive permission?
It is frustrating to know just the right resource for a class—and be unable to access enough classroom copies.
Just as vexing is going the extra mile to seek permission to make your own…only to be told that you’ve reached a dead end.
And yet, class must go on. We tried to ask…now can we just make those copies?
Can a school or library hand out copies of sheet music to students and keep their copies of the originals (as long as they had enough copies for each performer) to prevent the loss of the originals? The copies would be destroyed after the performance.
One of my all-time favorite TV shows is Gilmore Girls.
Aside from being the origin of many expressive phrases ("Oi with the poodles already!"), as a parent, Gilmore Girls gave me a concept I used almost daily: "jam hands."
Our library is always seeking ways to promote literacy, exercise, and park visits with community partners. One proposal we received was to take some books apart, laminate the separate pages, and mount them on display posts throughout a park, creating a moving, learning experience.
A “Path Through Learning!” This sounds like a really cool idea.
The member is right, though: to put this cool idea into effect as described, a library would need the permission of the copyright holder.
It’s hard to believe, but liability is just a rip and a lamination away.
Why is that?
ResearchGate is often a place individuals will go to snag PDFs which are typically provided by authors, not publishers.
I first heard about “ResearchGate” at a copyright training I was conducting for librarians.
There I was, holding forth about Section 108 and Fair Use, when out of the blue, an academic librarian asked me: “What do you think of Researchgate?”[1]
A teacher would like to reproduce an entire article from a published magazine. They state that because it is only 10% of the entire magazine, it falls under fair use. My interpretation has been that it is 10% of the article, since the article is a published work on its own.
The “Ten Percent Rule” has been kicking around the world of education for decades! This is a good chance to bust this myth, since as we’ll review, it is not a reliable stand-alone formula for “Fair Use” (copying without needing permission).
Teachers at our school like to use pictures from movies to decorate their doors. What rules apply to this?
At "Ask the Lawyer," we are frequently amazed at the diversity of the copyright questions we get. When we started the service, we thought we'd often refer people back to answers that had already been covered.
But librarians always find a way to switch things up!
What are the new variables this time?
"Doors" and "images from movies."
A member asked about a request for the library to provide copies of photos from yearbooks for a class reunion.
One of the reasons I enjoy doing “Ask the Lawyer,” is the diversity of questions, and the often esoteric subjects I get to research as a result. This question is a prime example.
Can a faculty member, who no longer requires students to buy a textbook, duplicate and share (with the students) the supplemental instructional resources provided by the publisher? The resources can be both digital and hard copy.
Sometimes, an instructor will try and solve both these problems by removing the book from the syllabus, while keeping a few choice materials on hand from the instructor copy supplied by the publisher. This seems like a win-win: the students have one less book to buy, while the lecture notes, visual aids, and LMS can carry forward the valuable content retained by the instructor.
I have had several requests by faculty to approve the coursepacks they have put together. All of them contain articles from various journals; some contain book chapters (1 chapter or less than 10%) as well, and they are intended to be sold in the campus book store to recoup copying costs.
You are not wrong in your thinking. You are protecting your institution. Further, by educating your faculty, you are helping them educate students.
