Copyright Compliance Policy: Library and Classroom

Section I: Text-Based Works

The purpose of the Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) Copyright Compliance Policy: Library and Classroom is to provide a summary of U.S. copyright law as it relates to the use of copyright-protected works in the classroom and library at PLNU, and to provide guidelines and procedures for obtaining copyright permission to use these works.

For the purposes of this document, “classroom use” includes both traditional classrooms and any digital course presence, whether used as the primary course delivery method or as a supplement to face-to-face teaching.

U.S. copyright law contains many gray areas, and the goal of this policy is to provide PLNU administrators, faculty, librarians, students, employees, and others with a standard approach for addressing complex copyright issues. This policy covers classroom issues such as photocopying, online and distance education, and course packs. It also covers library uses for print and electronic reserves, ILL and document delivery. Other PLNU copyright and intellectual property policies may complement this policy by providing further guidance on these or other copyright issues.

This policy provides practical advice and suggested procedures pertaining to copyright-related matters; however, it is not a substitute for legal advice, and proper legal advice should be obtained when necessary. Library faculty responsible for researching copyright questions may be reached via e-mail at copyright@pointloma.edu.

What is copyright?

Copyright is an area of law that provides creators and distributors of creative works with an incentive to share their works by granting them the right to be compensated when others use those works in certain ways. Specific rights are granted to the creators of creative works in the U.S. Copyright Act (title 17, U.S. Code). If you are not a copyright holder for a particular work, as determined by the law, you must ordinarily obtain copyright permission prior to reusing or reproducing that work. However, there are some specific exceptions in the Copyright Act for certain academic uses, and permission is never required for certain other actions, such as reading or borrowing original literary works or photographs from a library collection.

What is protected by copyright?

The rights granted by the Copyright Act are intended to benefit "authors" of "original works of authorship," including literary, dramatic, musical, architectural, cartographic, choreographic, pantomimic, pictorial, graphic, sculptural and audiovisual creations. This means that virtually any creative work that you may come across—including books, magazines, journals, newsletters, maps, charts, photographs, graphic materials, and other printed materials; unpublished materials, such as analysts' and consultants' reports; and non-print materials, including electronic content, computer programs and other software, sound recordings, motion pictures, video files, sculptures, and other artistic works—is almost certainly protected by copyright. Among the exclusive rights granted to those "authors" are the rights to reproduce, distribute, publicly perform and publicly display their works.

These rights provide copyright holders control over the use of their creations and an ability to benefit, monetarily and otherwise, from the use of their works. Copyright also protects the right to "make a derivative work," such as a movie from a book; the right to include a work in a collective work, such as publishing an article in a book or journal; and the rights of attribution and integrity for "authors" of certain works of visual art. Copyright law does not protect ideas, data, or facts.

In the U.S., the general rule of copyright duration for a work created on or after January 1, 1978 is the author's life plus 70 years after the author's death. This is often referred to as "life-plus-70." Works created by companies or other types of organizations generally have a copyright term of 95 years, while works created by the U.S. Government are not protected by copyright. For more information on copyright duration, visit https://www.copyright.gov/title17/.

Fair use

A provision for the fair use of protected materials is found in the Copyright Act at Section 107. Under the fair use provision, a reproduction of someone else's copyright-protected work is likely to be considered fair if it is used for one of the following purposes: criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. If the reproduction is for one of these purposes, a determination as to whether the reproduction is fair use must be made based upon four factors:

The purpose and character of use (principally, whether for commercial or nonprofit educational use);
The nature of the copyright-protected work (primarily, whether factual or creative);
The amount and substantiality of the portion used; and
The effect of the use being evaluated upon the potential market for or value of the copyright-protected work.

Fair use is an ambiguous concept, and the law does not state exactly what uses of a copyrighted work will be considered fair uses under the law and may therefore be used without obtaining permission. As such, individuals who are not lawyers may often need to be interpreters of the law in everyday circumstances, and answers as to how much reproduction may be considered fair use often remain unclear. The bottom line is that fair use requires a very circumstance-specific analysis as to whether a particular use or reuse of a work may indeed be considered fair use.

To avoid confusion and minimize the risk of copyright infringement, PLNU interprets the following situations as fair use:

Quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work for illustration or clarification of the author's observations.
Reproduction of material for classroom use where the reproduction is unexpected and spontaneous – for example, where an article in the morning's paper is directly relevant to that day's class topic. This would generally cover one time use in only one semester.
Use in a parody of short portions of the work itself.
A summary of an address or article, which may include quotations of short passages of the copyright-protected work.

If your use does not meet the above criteria and the work is protected by copyright, you probably need to obtain permission to use the work from the copyright holder or its agent.

Types of use

Classroom Handouts

Based on PLNU's fair use analysis, classroom handouts (print or digital reproductions of copyright-protected material that are distributed or posted for use in a course) fall into two categories: one that requires permission and one that does not. If the handout is a recent work for which a teacher could not reasonably be expected to obtain permission in a timely manner and the decision to use the work was spontaneous, the work may be used without obtaining permission. If the handout is entirely the original work of the professor and rights have not been ceded through publication agreement, the professor retains the right to use, copy, or distribute the work as desired. However, if the handout is planned in advance, repeated from semester to semester, or involves works that have existed long enough that one could reasonably be expected to obtain copyright permission in advance, obtain copyright permission.

Course Packs

All articles, chapters and other individual works in any print or electronic course pack require copyright permission. Copyright permission for course packs is usually granted by the academic period. To reuse a course pack in subsequent academic terms, you probably need to obtain permission again. Many copyright holders provide time-sensitive permission because their own rights may be time-sensitive and could be transferred to different copyright holders at any time.

The individual professor is responsible for obtaining permission to include materials in a course pack, although she or he may delegate the actual tasks required for doing so. Deferring responsibility for copyright permission does not provide individuals or the university protection against a claim of copyright infringement.

Library Reserve

If the PLNU library owns a copy of a publication, that copy may be placed on reserve without obtaining copyright permission. If a professor wishes the library to reproduce additional copies of a work (or sections of a work) and place them on reserve for students to review, in either paper or electronic format, the professor must obtain copyright permission unless the material meets the requirements of fair use.

Photocopying by the Library

It is permissible for libraries to photocopy copyright-protected works without obtaining permission from the copyright owner, under the following circumstances:

Library user requests for articles and short excerpts. At the request of a library user or another library on behalf of a library user, the PLNU library may make one reproduction of an article from a periodical or a small part of any other work. The reproduction must become the property of the library user, and the library must have no reason to believe that the reproduction will be used for purposes other than private study, scholarship, and research. As recommended by Section 108 of the Copyright Act, the library must display the register's notice at the place library users make their reproduction requests to the library.
Archival reproductions of unpublished works. Up to three reproductions of any unpublished work may be made for preservation or security or for deposit for research use in another library or archive. This may be a photocopy or digital reproduction. If it is a digital reproduction, the reproduction may not be made available to the public outside the library or archive premises. Prior to receiving any of the three reproductions permitted under this provision from another library or archive, the PLNU library or archive must make a reasonable effort to purchase a new replacement at a fair price. The reproducing library or archive must also own the work in its collection.
Replacement of lost, damaged or obsolete copies. The PLNU library may make up to three reproductions, including digital reproductions, of a published work that is lost, stolen, damaged, deteriorating, or stored in an obsolete format. Any digital reproductions must be kept within the confines of the library (that is, available on its computer but not placed on a public network).
Library user requests for entire works. One reproduction of an entire book or periodical may be made by your library at a library user's request, or by another library on behalf of a library user upon certain conditions being met. These conditions include the library determining after reasonable investigation that an authorized reproduction cannot be obtained at a reasonable price. Once made, the reproduction must become the property of the library user. The library must have no reason to believe that the reproduction will be used by the user for purposes other than private study, scholarship, and research; and the library must display the register's notice at the place library users make their reproduction requests to the library.

Photocopying by Individual Library Users

Photocopying by students and faculty is subject to a fair use analysis as well. A single photocopy of a portion of a copyright-protected work, such as a copy of an article from a scientific journal made for research, may be made without permission. Photocopying all of the assignments from a book recommended for purchase by the instructor, making multiple copies of articles or book chapters for distribution to classmates, or copying material from consumable workbooks all require permission.

InterLibrary Loan

The PLNU library may participate in interlibrary loans without obtaining permission from rights holders provided that the aggregate quantity of articles or items received by the patron do not substitute for a periodical subscription or purchase of a work. PLNU follows the CONTU guidelines for defining "aggregate quantities." The CONTU guidelines state that requesting and receiving more than five articles from a single periodical within a calendar year or a total of six or more copies of articles published within five years prior to the date of request would be too many under CONTU. The library’s interlibrary loan system provider monitors requests for this purpose.

Articles or items obtained through a digital license may specify under what terms and conditions, if any, interlibrary loan is permitted.

Distance Education and Course Management Systems

In 2002, the Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act became law and expanded the latitude universities, including PLNU, have for the performance and display of copyright-protected materials in a distance education environment, including through the use of Course Management Systems (CMS).

The copyright requirements for TEACH and CMS postings are similar to those of classroom handouts, but extend the traditional rules for those handouts to the digital transmission of materials to distance education students (assuming access to materials is limited to students enrolled in the course). If the use of text-based materials is educational, limited in scope, and spontaneous, copyright permission is likely not required; however, the content may not remain posted beyond the conclusion of the course. If the use is planned, repeated, or involves works that have existed long enough that one could reasonably expect to receive a response to a request for copyright permission, copyright permission should be obtained.

Copyright and Foreign Works

The U.S. is a member of the leading international copyright treaty, the Berne Convention. As such, when PLNU uses a copyright-protected work from another country, the protections provided to works by U.S. copyright law automatically apply to the use of that work as well, assuming the use takes place in the U.S.

Public performance of protected works

Audiovisual Works

Classroom Use

Copyright law includes a classroom exemption [17 U.S.C. § 110(1)] for movies shown for educational purposes at non-profit schools. For the showing of a movie to qualify for the classroom exemption, the following criteria need to be met:

The showing must take place in “a classroom or similar place devoted to instruction” and be available solely to those enrolled in the class;
The showing must take place “in the course of… teaching activities” that are directly related to the instructional objectives of the course; and
The actual showing of the film needs to be facilitated by either the course instructor or an enrolled pupil; the instructor must be present.

Public Performance

Showing a movie or other audiovisual work outside the home or classroom setting requires obtaining public performance rights through a permissions agency such as the Motion Picture Licensing Corporation. A public display is one in which the work is shown “at a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered.” Public performance rights are necessary regardless of whether admission is charged.

Dramatic or Musical Stage Plays

Dramatic or musical works that are not in the public domain may not be publicly performed, either live or in a recorded format, without permission of the rights holder. Performance rights for stage plays or musical stage plays may be obtained from organizations like Samuel French. Licensing agreements from these organizations or from the work’s author or the author’s agent may include additional restrictions beyond those imposed by copyright law. Unauthorized modifications of the work—including abridgement or adaptation; changes in dialogue, staging or casting; or other departures from the script or score—constitute the creation of a derivative work and are not permissible under copyright law.

Recording of Performances

The university and its agents must abide by the conditions of any performance license obtained for public performance of copyright protected material. Any material for which the performance license expressly prohibits video recording or audio recording may not be recorded in part or in its entirety for any purpose without written permission from the rights holder(s) or the rights holder’s licensing agent. Fair use considerations do not supersede contractual agreement.

Written permission must be obtained in order to record any copyrighted material performed outside the confines of the classroom setting. If a work is in the public domain, it may be video recorded or audio recorded without permission.
However, if a translation of a public domain property is being used, and if the translation is not in the public domain, the performance cannot be recorded without permission of the party owning the translation rights.
If the intellectual property is not in the public domain, written permission to video record or audio record must be obtained from the rights holder(s) or the rights holder’s licensing agent. Written permissions may be obtained either by a rider (if a contract is involved) or by an assenting written or email response from the rights holder(s) or their licensing agent.
If recording rights are granted conditionally, the department or office that has been granted permission to record a performance must abide by the conditions under which permission was granted.
If a performance license does not expressly prohibit video recording or audio recording, a fair use analysis may be undertaken to evaluate whether the proposed reproduction likely constitutes fair use as described by Title 17 § 107 of the United States Code.
Written permissions for video recording or audio recording will be retained by the department or office that obtained the performance license.

How to obtain copyright permission

Permission to use copyright-protected materials, when required, should be obtained prior to using those materials. The simplest method for obtaining permission is to use the services of a copyright clearance provider such as Copyright Clearance Center.

Individuals may wish to directly contact the rights holder associated with the materials, but doing so is often time consuming. If the copyright holder is not listed on the work, locating the appropriate person or entity to grant permission may take some investigative and creative work. The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress (www.loc.gov) may be of assistance in locating a copyright owner if the work is registered. Note, however, that copyright is automatically granted to all works upon their generation in a fixed format and that registration with the Copyright Office is not required for the assignment of copyright. Regardless of the process selected, begin the permissions request process as early as possible to allow time for responses from the clearance center or rights holder.

When seeking copyright permission for materials planned for inclusion in a course pack, consider using the services of a vendor like University Readers. Such organizations facilitate requests for permission and generate course packs in both print and digital formats for student purchase. Established agreements with numerous publishers enable these vendors to supply permission information expeditiously.

Information in your Permission Request

The copyright holder (or agent thereof) will require the following information in order to provide you with permission:

Title of the material
Creator/author of the material
Publisher of the material
Description of material
ISBN or ISSN, if applicable
Date of publication, if applicable
Purpose for reproduction (research, commercial, educational, etc.)
Method of reproduction (e.g., photocopied, digitized)
Where, how long, and for how many individuals the reproduced material will be used

Section II: Non-Text Works

The purpose of Section II of this policy is to provide a summary of U.S. copyright law as it relates to the use of copyright-protected works in visual, audio, audiovisual, or multimedia formats for courses offered by PLNU; and to provide guidelines and procedures for obtaining copyright permission to use these works. The digital classroom is defined as the online presence associated with any class, regardless of whether it serves as the primary environment of the course or a forum for the delivery of supplemental materials.

Images

All images, whether pictorial or graphic, are protected by copyright according to the provisions of copyright law in effect at the time of their creation. Fair use guidelines suggest that professors and students may use or display digital images within either traditional or digital classrooms in connection with lectures or presentations, including noncommercial seminars, workshops, and conferences. Such images may be digitized from analog originals or duplicated from digital originals; source attribution should be provided.

Fair use does not defend the distribution of protected images in publications or for non-educational purposes, making such uses as newsletters, fliers, web sites, or advertisements a violation of copyright protection. Permission to use protected images for non-educational or commercial purposes should be sought from the rights owner.

Audio Materials

Music, including both recorded and printed representations, is protected by copyright law to the same extent as other works of original authorship and should be considered a protected medium. Music that has fallen into the public domain (most commonly, classical music) may be copied, performed, displayed, or otherwise used without restriction. Note that creative arrangements of classical works are protected by copyright as newly derived works.

Use of Music in the Traditional Classroom

Section 110(1) of Title 17 of the US Code provides an exemption from potential copyright infringement for the performance or display of non-dramatic literary or musical works in the course of face-to-face teaching activities at accredited, nonprofit educational institutions. The copy performed or displayed for educational purposes must be legally obtained, and the music (or other non-dramatic work) must be directly related to the teaching purposes of the class session.

Use of Music in the Digital Classroom

In addition to the restrictions described for the use of music in the traditional classroom, music (or other non-dramatic audio materials such as recorded poetry) used in a digital teaching environment must be protected by allowing access only to those students enrolled in the course and, to the extent possible, by preventing students from preserving or disseminating the material; and by avoiding interference with any technological measures intended to prevent copying or distribution of the protected material.

Video (audiovisual) Materials

Use of Video Content in the Traditional Classroom

According to Section 110(1) of Title 17 of the US Code, audiovisual materials such as films may be either excerpted or shown in their entirety in face-to-face teaching environments, provided the film is used for educational purposes, that it is presented by a teacher, and that the copy used for display was legally obtained. For additional information, see “Classroom Use” under Public Performance of Protected Works.

Use of Video Content in the Digital Classroom

Although the law allows the display of entire movies for educational purposes in the face-to-face environment, it does not allow the same for online teaching. For dramatic media (this includes movies), only selected clips can be used. Specifically, under Federal law it is permissible to use “reasonable and limited portions” of a larger work. While the exact parameters that constitute “reasonable and limited,” are not defined, the phrase clearly precludes posting a film in its entirety.

The work must be used in a manner analogous to in-class use of the material and must clearly support the teaching objectives of the course—protected video material may not be used for purely supplemental or entertainment purposes. Access to the material must be limited to students in the course (“to the extent technologically feasible”) and must be provided for only a limited time, not to exceed the duration of the course. All reasonable precautions must be taken to prevent students from preserving or distributing copies of the material or from accessing the material after the course concludes.

Reporting suspected infringements

If you suspect that anyone at PLNU, including a student, is using any copyright-protected material without the permission of the copyright holder, forward all pertinent information regarding the alleged violation to copyright@pointloma.edu.

Review and Interpretation of policy

This Policy will be reviewed annually and updated if necessary. The Policy represents a good faith effort to accurately interpret and apply copyright law, but it does not constitute legal advice and should not be construed as such.

For questions regarding this Policy, contact copyright@pointloma.edu.

The PLNU University Copyright Compliance Policy was most recently updated on July 19, 2023.

The template upon which this policy is based was created by Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.