A Quick Guide to Copyright
Contact: Jane Carlin, jcarlin@pugetsound.edu,
or Lori Ricigliano, ricigliano@pugetsound.edu
Faculty have a legal responsibility to ensure that the work they wish to distribute to students has proper copyright clearance or falls within the definition of fair use. This applies to resources that you plan on distributing via a course Moodle site or through a course packet. To assist you with this practice, Collins Library provides several resources:
Copyright Guide for Faculty: This site outlines copyright basics, fair use and provides an overview of copyright issues associated with teaching, including guidelines to follow when posting on Moodle as well preparing course packs.
Copyright Clearance Center Site License: The University of Puget Sound has purchased an Annual Copyright License from the Copyright Clearance Center: http://www.copyright.com/. This license covers a large catalog of text-based materials. It enables the university community to reproduce and distribute specific copyrighted content that falls under this license in both print and digital form. The license covers over a million titles, including journals, magazines, newspapers, and books, and it grants university employees and students the right to use and distribute content in:
|
If publications are not covered under the CCC license agreement, you may obtain permission for course pack materials by using the Copyright Clearance Center’s pay-per-use service. Contact Eric Peckham: epeckham@pugetsound.edu in the Bookstore for information.
Fair Use: “Know Your Copy Rights” is a useful reference that outlines some of the works you may use in your teaching without permission or fee. The digital age has made potential course content available in a wide variety of ways, and faculty can often choose amongst several formats to make reading, viewing and listening materials available to students. Collins Memorial Library licenses over 150 database resources in a wide range of subjects. Most of these materials can be made available through an embedded link in a Moodle page or online syllabus because students are connecting as authorized users. Additionally, permission is not needed if the works are in the public domain (generally, material published before 1923) or are offered freely under a Creative Commons license. For other material, a fair use analysis should be considered; if fair use is determined not to apply to the specific use, permission must be obtained. A fair use checklist is available at: http://library.ups.edu/copyright/Appendix%20B.pdf
Author Rights: Faculty retain copyright ownership of their scholarly or artistic work. As the author of a work, faculty may assign copyright ownership to another person or organization, such as a publisher, when there is a written agreement. When faculty transfer copyright, they may be required to ask permission for subsequent use of their work, including:
- Posting on a website
- Sharing with others
- Depositing in Sound Ideas: http://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/, the University’s Institutional Repository
- Re-using the work
Faculty are encouraged to negotiate terms and amend publisher agreements to retain certain rights, including the rights to:
- reproduce, distribute, perform and display the work for non-commercial purposes
- prepare derivative works
- authorize others to make any non-commercial use
The Author Rights website provides information on negotiation options.
Need Information? Don’t forget the Collins Memorial Library Database List A-Z
Questions? Contact your liaison librarian
Comments: Contact Jane Carlin, Library Director
Remember – Your best search engine is a Librarian!