Answered By: Chris Shaver
Last Updated: Oct 03, 2023     Views: 1989

In general, to make use of copyrighted work, you must receive permission from the copyright holder, such as from the publisher or the author(s), or pay a fee or royalties. You must follow the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, United States Code) and guidelines when posting copyrighted material. Failure to do so exposes you to liability.

When the document you want to post is already available through library subscriptions, such as through Discovery Search, we strongly suggest that you add the persistent link of the document to your Canvas course site instead of posting a copy. Please use the following instructions to find persistent links to items in the library's electronic collection. This way, you observe copyright restrictions and the library sees more accurate usage statistics, which are used to make subscription decisions.

If you still want to post a copyrighted document, follow these guidelines.

  • Restrict access to students of the course

  • Restrict access to your course materials to currently enrolled students. The TEACH Act requires you restrict access to copyright materials to your current students.
  • Posting copyrighted materials to an open Canvas course is not allowed.
  • Limit access to the current semester

  • Access to copyrighted material must end when the course ends. (You can use the documents again if you teach the same class the following semester.) The current version of your course in Canvas must expire at the end of the semester, or you must manually remove the documents.
  • Limit the amount posted

  • What you post should be directly relevant to the course, and equivalent to what you would discuss in a face-to-face class. Limit yourself to a single article from a journal issue, one book chapter, or 10% of the work, whichever is less.
  • Post a copyright notice with the documents

  • The TEACH Act requires posting a copyright notice with copyrighted materials. For non-text materials, you should display the following notice on the page where the links to copyrighted materials appear:

These materials are protected by copyright law. Reproduction or retransmission of the materials, in whole or in part, in any manner, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, is a violation of copyright law. You may make a single copy of the materials available through this course for personal, noncommercial use.  You must preserve any copyright or other notices contained in or associated with them. You may not distribute such copies to others, whether or not in electronic form, whether or not for a charge or other consideration, without prior written consent of the copyright holder of the materials.

  • For textual materials, add this copyright notice PDF to the front of each PDF you post, using Acrobat tools.

Please also refer to the Resources on U.S. Copyright:

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