Henry Buhl Library

Copyright Compliance

To help you meet the requirements of the campus Copyright Compliance Policy, Grove City College is a member of Copyright Clearance Center’s annual institutional license for blanket copyright permission to some of their materials, based on their partnerships with publishers who use CCC to handle permissions for them.   

Personnel covered:

Licensed uses include:

List of publishers currently participating in the Annual Copyright License

How to Use CCC’s annual license program: 

Go to www.copyright.com, click on Academic (rather than Business or Copyright Central), click on Verify titles under your annual license (under Quick Links).  Fill out the form with title or ISBN and search.  If the item you want to use is in the license program, you may use that item for that semester without further action.   

Remember that permissions are granted one semester at a time through CCC.  Check each new semester to be sure that nothing has changed before continuing to post or copy and handout. 

If an item you want to use is not licensed under the annual fee program, you may ask Conni Shaw (clshaw@gcc.edu or x3842) to seek permission for you and to pay for it from the Library’s permissions fund.  If you prefer not to do the checking yourself, provide Conni with your wish list via mail or email and she will report back to you.   

Charges for the annual license:  The annual license fee is based on our Carnegie Classification and a per-FTE student assessment.  The per-FTE fee is $7.50; higher fees are possible in subsequent years.

Reporting Usage Back to CCC:  In addition to the annual fee, we are obligated once a year to provide CCC with usage data of copyrighted content used for course materials and e-reserves, regardless of how that content is disseminated to students, in order to determine the distribution of royalties to publishers.  This survey of our use of CCC documents requires faculty cooperation in disclosure of postings on course management and personal web sites, print handouts and print course packs sold through the book store.

As you select readings for your classes: 

Consider using articles from full-text databases we subscribe to.  Databases fall into three categories regarding copyright permissions.

These full-text databases have already licensed their content for e-reserves and e-course packs, without further fees:

ACS Archive Health Source  (EBSCO database) Newspaper Source  (EBSCO database)
Annual Reviews (archive and current) Historical Abstracts  (EBSCO database) Oxford Art Online (includes Grove Art)
Academic Search Premier  (EBSCO database) International Security & Counter Terrorism  (EBSCO database) Oxford Music Online  (includes Grove Music)
America History & Life  (EBSCO database) JSTOR Project Muse
ATLA Religion Database  (EBSCO database) LexisNexis Academic Proquest National Newspapers
Biological Abstracts  (EBSCO database) LexisNexis Congressional PsycNET
Business Source Premier (EBSCO database) Literary Reference Center  (EBSCO database) Tests in Print  (EBSCO database)
Communication & Mass Media Complete  (EBSCO database) MLA International Bibliography  (EBSCO database)  
Education Research Complete  (EBSCO database) Medline with Full-text  (EBSCO database)
Eric  (EBSCO database) Military & Government  (EBSCO database)  
   

These full-text databases do not permit uploading their full-text but do permit linking to articles via their own linking system. Ask Joyce (jmkebert@gcc.edu; x3821) for assistance.

    CQ Weekly
    CQ Global Researcher
    CQ Researcher
    CQ Political Reference Suite
    Science Direct Health & Life Sciences

For all other readings – articles, chapters, poems, plays, short stories, etc., check copyright permission availability and cost through Copyright Clearance Center (www.copyright.com).

For items not included in or permissions not granted by Copyright Clearance Center, consult the publisher and/or author (rightsholders) for permission.  Sometimes the answer from the rightsholder will be “no” or there will be no response at all, which also translates into “no.”  At that point, you must move on to a different reading.

Web sites about copyright

Fair use, while a nice idea, has proven to be more difficult and time-consuming to determine than it is worth.  We do not recommend invoking fair use. 

Stanford's Copyright Renewal Database -- an online resource to enable users to search copyright-renewal records for books published in the United States between 1923 and 1963.

Copyright Clearance Center

U.S. Copyright Office at the Library of Congress

Lolly Gasaway’s chart on public domain -- Ms. Gasaway’s chart is considered the gold standard in delineating the terms of copyright and is useful primarily for books.

Welcome to Copyright for Music Librarians -- maintained by the Legislation Committee of the Music Library Association (MLA) as a resource for anyone interested in issues of copyright as they apply to the fields of music and music librarianship

Historic Guidelines for copyright and fair use

The following web sites include the primary delineations of copyright compliance and fair use available for the academic community.  Note that they were prepared well before the digital era, before the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and before the Bono amendment, and that they were promulgated by the users rather than the creators of copyrighted works. 

Campus Copyright Rights and Responsibilities: A Basic Guide to Policy Considerations -- (Association of American Universities) -- provides information on many facets of copyright in academia

Guidelines for Classroom Copying, from the 1976 Copyright Act  (American Association of Publishers)

Model Policy Concerning College and University Photocopying for Classroom, Research, and Library Reserve Use from 1982 -- one that many colleges and universities use as their guide to copyright compliance and fair use. 

CONFU Fair-Use Guidelines for Electronic Reserve Systems  -- after two years of discussion, conference constituents could not come to a consensus and the guidelines were never passed. Some believed the guidelines too strict; others, too incomplete.  This conference has been the only serious attempt to address copyright in the digital world.

University web pages on copyright and fair use:

Many large universities have expansive web pages on copyright compliance at their institutions.  Here are some of the best: 

The University System of Georgia Copyright Policy

University of Texas Crash Course on Copyright 

Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center  

A word about fair use – or whose ox is being gored

Fair use is not an easy concept to understand or to apply.  Usually, the fairness of each fair use incident lies in the eye of the beholder, whether it is the user or the creator.   

Four test cases are used  to determine fair use, delineated by U.S. copyright law, asking essentially :

Test 1:  How are you going to use the work, for what purpose

Test 2:  What kind of a work is it – as in factual or creative

Test 3:  How much of the work are you going to use

Test 4:  Will your use, without asking and paying for permission, negatively affect the creator’s/owner’s income from this work

 
In our experience with e-reserves, our fair use always falls short of fair on the third and fourth tests. 

Test 3: The least amount of a work you use is the most likely to be fair.  Professors here tend to use the whole work (as in article, play, poem) or a sizable or major portion (3 of 5 chapters or the key chapter of a book).

 Test 4: If the book or article is under copyright and its fee set through Copyright Clearance Center, or if it is still available for purchase, indeed we are negatively affecting the creator’s/owner’s income from his/her work.

A word about out-of-print status

The three dreaded words -- out of print – represent an inconvenience but not a tacit understanding that you can use it without permission.  In most cases, an out-of-print item is still under copyright and you must seek permission from the rightsholder(s) before using it.

Buhl Library contacts for assistance

Call, email, or stop by the library to discuss your plans or ask questions.  If you haven’t worked with e-reserves and copyright permissions before, an overview session is helpful; contact Diane Grundy (dhgrundy@gcc.edu; x2049).   

The librarians listed below are especially helpful in their specific areas but will enlist others as necessary to answer your questions.  Regardless of whomever you talk to, tell us what you are trying to achieve with your students and let us suggest the best way to get there. 

   Amy Cavanaugh (accavanaugh@gcc.edu; x2148) and Kim Marks (ksmarks@gcc.edu; x1532) – instruction and reference

   Conni Shaw (clshaw@gcc.edu; x3842) – e-reserves and interlibrary loan

   Joyce Kebert (jmkebert@gcc.edu; x3821) –  serials, document delivery, and database management

   Carol Singleton (cjsingleton@gcc.edu; x4038) – print reserves 

10/01/2009
©Henry Buhl Library
Grove City College 2009