Fair Use "Rules of Thumb"
Although judging fair use is not always an easy matter, there are some
clear cut cases where fair use may be applied in an educational setting.
These "rules of thumb" have been established over years by academic
libraries and constitute minimum rights under fair use.
Under accepted
principles of fair use, you may safely put on course reserve:
- Any document in the public domain.
- A copy of an article from a journal issue held by the library or
acquired by the library through interlibrary loan.
- A copy of a chapter or less from a book owned by the library or
acquired by the library through interlibrary loan.
- An entire book (not a copy) owned by the library.
- Materials you have created and retained the copyright to (e.g., example
exams). Please be aware that if you published the material you may have
signed over copyright to the publisher.
These uses are the minimum rights covered by fair use.
When it might not be fair use. Educational use does not
necessarily mean that you automatically
qualify for fair use exemption from copyright laws. When planning course
reserves, you may have to obtain special permission or arrange to pay
royalties when you wish to
- copy a substantial portion of a book,
- copy a substantial portion of a single issue of a journal, or
- use the same material for more than one year.
These are general rules that have developed over time at U.S. academic
libraries. More information is available in Copyright and Fair Use. Interpretation
of copyright law and fair use may change due to court cases or pending
legislation. The
librarians at the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library are monitoring these
developments
and will make adjustments to this service as warranted.
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