Copyright & Fair Dealing

YES: a single copy or a short excerpt  from a copyright-protected work may be provided or communicated to each student enrolled in a class or course at Mount Saint Vincent University (distance or on-campus). You cannot copy an entire work (book, journal, or magazine).

• A short excerpt is commonly interpreted as 10% of a work or 1 single article, chapter, image, or poem from a copyright-protected work containing other artistic works.

• In a face to face class, do not staple several articles together.  This will become an anthology or a course pack. This scenario is better handled via commercial photocopy services which subscribe to an Access Copyright licence.

• In an online class site (e.g. Moodle) or when communicating by email, the best practice is to link to resources if there is a legal copy available online, or via the Library's licensed e-resources. If you must scan or digitize multiple documents do not create a single file. This will be considered an anthology.

• Your handouts must be fee of charge to all students.

• Avoid systematic or accumulative handouts that in essence would amount to copying an entire work in small installments.

• Do not copy works that you suspect have been themselves been copied or posted online without the consent of the copyright holder.

• Public Domain and most Open Access and Creative Commons licensed material can be copied and handed out in the classroom freely.

• Materials licensed by the Mount Saint Vincent University Library may have different conditions. For example the amount that may be printed from an e-book may vary from 5% to 20% depending on the publisher.

• Please make sure that all work is properly cited.