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PERMISSIBLE COPYING OF PRINT WORKS ("FAIR USE")

The Copyright Act allows anyone to photocopy works without securing permission from the copyright owner when the photocopying amounts to a "fair use" of the material. [17 U.S.C. #107]. These guidelines suggest the boundaries for fair use of photocopied material used in research, the classroom, or library reserves at the College.

Research Use

At the very least, instructors may make a single copy of any of the following for scholarly research, use in teaching, or preparation to teach a class:

  1. a chapter from a book;
  2. an article from a periodical or newspaper;
  3. a short story, short essay, or short poem, whether or not from a collective work;
  4. a chart, diagram, graph, drawing, cartoon or picture from a book, periodical, or newspaper.

These examples reflect the most conservative guidelines for fair use. They do not represent inviolate ceilings for the amount of copyrighted material which can be photocopied within the boundaries of fair use. When exceeding these minimum levels, however, you again should consider the four factors listed in Section 107 of the Copyright Act to make sure that any additional photocopying is justified. The following examples demonstrate situations where increased levels of photocopying would continue to remain within the scope of fair use:

  1. the inability to obtain another copy of the work because it is not available from another library or source or cannot be obtained within your time constraints;
  2. the intention to photocopy the material only once and not distribute the material to others;
  3. the ability to keep the amount of the material photocopied within a reasonable proportion to the entire work, (the larger the work, the greater the amount of material which may be photocopied). Most single-copy photocopying for your personal use in research -- even when it involves a substantial portion of a work -- may constitute fair use.

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Classroom Use

Educators and publishers have developed the following guidelines. These allow a teacher to distribute photocopied material to students in a class without the publisher's prior permission, under the following conditions:

  1. the distribution of the same photocopied material does not occur every semester;
  2. only one copy is distributed for each student and that copy must become the student's property;
  3. the material includes a copyright notice on the first page of the portion of material photocopied;
  4. the students are not assessed any fee beyond the actual cost of the photocopying;
  5. the amount of material distributed should not exceed certain brevity standards: a prose work may be reproduced in its entirety if it is less than 2500 words in length; if the work exceeds such length, the excerpt reproduced may not exceed 1000 words, or 10% of the work, whichever is less; in the case of poetry, 250 words is the maximum permitted. (These standards of brevity may not be realistic in the College setting. Faculty members needing to exceed these limits for College teaching should not feel hampered by these guidelines, although they should attempt a "selective and sparing" use of photocopies of copyrighted material.)
  6. the photocopying practices of an instructor should not have a detrimental impact on the market of the copyrighted work. [17 U.S.C. #107(4)].
    To guard against this effect, instructors should normally restrict use of an item of photocopied material to one course and should not photocopy excerpts from one periodical or author repeatedly without permission of the copyright owner.

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Library Reserve Use

At the request of a faculty member, a library may place on reserve photocopied excerpts from copyrighted works in its collection in accordance with guidelines similar to those governing formal classroom distribution for face-to-face teaching discussed in 1-4 above. The College believes that these guidelines apply to the library reserve shelf to the extent that it functions as an extension of classroom readings or reflects an individual student's right to photocopy for his personal scholastic use under the doctrine of fair use. In general, instructors may ask the library to place photocopied materials on closed reserve for the convenience of students, both in preparing class assignments and in pursuing informal educational activities required by higher education, such as advanced research and independent study.

If the request calls for only one copy to be placed on reserve, the photocopied item may be an entire article, or an entire chapter from a book, or an entire poem.

Requests for multiple copies on reserve should meet the following guidelines:

  1. the amount of material should be reasonable in relation to the total amount of material assigned for one term of a course, taking into account the nature of the course, its subject matter and level
    [17 U.S.C. #107(1) and (3)];
  2. the number of copies should be reasonable in light of students enrolled, the difficulty and timing of assignments, and the number of other courses that may assign the same material [17 U.S.C. #107(1) and (3)];
  3. the material should contain a notice of copyright [see 17 U.S.C. #401];
  4. the effect of photocopying the material should not be detrimental to the market for the work. (the library should own at least one copy of the work.) [17 U.S.C. #107(4)].

For example, a professor may place on reserve a reasonable number of copies of articles from academic journals or chapters from trade books as a supplement to the course textbook. A reasonable number of copies will be less than six in most instances, but factors such as length or difficulty of the assignment, the number of enrolled students, and the length of time allowed for completion of the assignment may permit more in unusual circumstances.

In addition, a faculty member may also request that multiple copies of photocopied, copyrighted material not owned by the library be placed on the reserve shelf for one-time use if the material is current and/or the inspiration and decision to use the work and the moment of its use for maximum teaching effectiveness are so close in time that it would be unreasonable to expect a timely reply to a request for permission. If you are in doubt as to whether a particular instance of photocopying is fair use, you should seek the publisher's permission. Most publishers will be cooperative and will waive any fee for such a use.

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