Textbooks

My institution subscribes to the "Kurzweil Reading Program", a "Text-to-Speech" product for those with reading impairments (dyslexia, English language learners, blind/vision impaired, etc.)

Section 121 indicates these users are "eligible persons" for "fair use", but others, without such disabilities could use the program (like an audiobook in the car!).

This question reflects the level of savvy "Ask the Lawyer" readers bring to their submissions.  The member submitting the question has already set out (in a manner much more succinct than I usually achieve) the interplay of:

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 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.

Our question concerns the copying of college textbook chapters for students where the required textbook is either backordered by the bookstore day one of semester or where a late enrollees’ textbook is out of stock. 

It’s 2017.  Digital access to academic resources having been a factor in academic life for over 20 years, it would be reasonable to think I would have clear, well-established guidance to give you.