Granite State College does not condone copyright infringement by faculty, administrators, staff, employees, or students. Each individual is solely responsible for obtaining permission from copyright holders to duplicate, or in any way reproduce, in part or in whole, materials held under copyright.
With the approval of this Copyright Policy the Granite State College Community has taken a first step toward addressing copyright as a serious academic concern. The purpose of this document is to outline the procedure the college's faculty and staff should follow to avoid violations and for securing copyright clearance.
Fair Use
What is "Fair Use"? Fair Use guidelines exist to allow reasonable, legal use of copyrighted material without explicit permission from the copyright holder.
Representatives of publishers, authors, and educators agreed on minimum standards of educational fair use of copyrighted materials in a 1976 "Agreement on Guidelines for Classroom Copying in Not-For-Profit Educational Institutions with Respect to Books and Periodicals."
Single Copy: According to these Guidelines, a single copy may be made of any of the following by a teacher or student for scholarly research, study, or use in teaching or preparing for a class:
A chapter from a book
A single article from a periodical or newspaper issue
A short story, short essay, or short poem
A chart, graph, diagram, cartoon, or picture from a book, periodical, or newspaper
Multiple Copies: The guidelines for multiple copies for classroom are more restrictive. "Educational use" alone is not sufficient to qualify as "Fair use." If a teacher is "inspired" to use a work in class and the moment of use is so close in time that it is unreasonable to receive a timely reply for permission from the copyright holder, then copies may be made under the following guidelines:
A complete article is less than 2,500 words in length, an excerpt of a prose work is no longer than 10% of the work, or 1,000 words, whichever is shorter
A short poem or excerpt of a poem is no longer than 250 words or no more than one article, story, poem, or essay, or two excerpts are from the same author
What is not allowed: Regardless of the above, the following copying activities are always prohibited:
Copying to create, replace, or substitute for anthologies, compilations, or collective works, copying of, or from a work intended to be "consumable" in the course of study, including workbooks, exercises, standardized tests, answer sheets, etc.
Copying to substitute for the purchase of books or periodicals
Copying in excess of "Fair Use" even when directed by a higher authority, such as a dean or department chairperson copying of the same item by the same teacher from term to term, without permission
Copying with any charges to students beyond the cost of photocopying
Electronic Resources: Questions have been raised about how to apply copyright guidelines to resources taken from the Web. The following information should help:
Compiled lists of URLs are not considered copyrighted materials. They are directories. However, it is appropriate, when these lists have been compiled by an individual or institution to give credit to the compiler of the list.
Graphics: Graphics on the Web are considered under copyright much the same way illustrations, trademarks, and/or works of art are covered when presented in a paper resource. You can not download a graphic, map, illustration from another Website and use it on a Website or document of your own without obtaining permission from the copyright holder.
Articles & Text taken from the Web. This is a complex issue. A simple answer is that you often will see documents illegally put on a Website. The salient point, however, is not that the document is on the Website, but that it has been USED without permission. You are not allowed to copy an article, scan it into a digital form, and put it on your Website. For a complete discussion of this topic see Copyright and Distance Education.
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