Lately, there has been renewed interest in copyright on university campuses.
Many major research and teaching activities are affected by this law: publishing,
photocopying, course reserves, course packets, video presentations, musical
performances, and preservation of library material. It is the University's
responsibility to provide assistance to those who need to understand and
abide by the law's provisions.
The law was written to "...promote the Progress of Science and useful
Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive
right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." It also provided
for the concept of "fair use," which basically recognized the
right to use protected materials on a limited basis without permission.
The guidelines are:
The Bookstore, in conjunction with Graphic Services, can not only make available
textbooks, workbooks, and monographs, but also "course packs"
of short works, such as articles and chapters, though copyright permission
is necessary for their distribution. The Bookstore obtains this permission
for faculty and adds the royalty fee onto the cost of the packet.
The University Counsel's Office has written a form letter which faculty
can use to obtain permissions, and it is common knowledge that individual
faculty requests for educational use of copyright material are often granted
without charge. It is also a fact that most publishers are prepared to give
timely permission. If there are royalty fees charged, these must be funded
by the individual faculty member or department. As a new service, and upon
request from a faculty member, the Library will obtain and pay the fees
for the use of works covered by the Copyright Clearing Center, which can
obtain permission from a large number of publishers, but not all.
There is no copyright issue in placing Library books or personal copies
of material supplied by the professor (textbooks, workbooks, out-of-print
items) or material created by the professor (solution sets, exams, bibliographies)
on Course Reserve. Photocopies of articles or chapters may be placed on
reserve, if guidelines are followed.
In the case of multiple copies for classroom use it is important to remember
that fair use provides for "spontaneous" classroom distribution
of "brief" amounts of material by the professor. Photocopies may
be placed on course reserves in the Library without permission if they have
not been used for the same class in previous semesters. For repeated use
of an article, permission must be obtained every time and royalties paid
for each semester it is used. Photocopies must include a statement of copyright.
Of special interest in 1996 is what effect electronic publishing and Internet
access to documents will have on the copyright law. The current move in
government is to recommend changes in the 1976 law that would be more restrictive
and use licensing as a way to provide complete control of materials. The
Library, for example, plans to offer "electronic course reserves"
in the near future. This service would provide digitized texts that might
be readable and/or printable by multiple users from locations around campus.
Technical, legal, and financial constraints must be addressed before this
becomes a reality. Look for further announcements about changes in the copyright
laws and for details on how to obtain copyright permission on the University's
Home Page.-F.K.D.