Understand the general principles of copyright and intellectual property law and how they may apply to specific situations.
Copyright ensures that an author controls over how their work is distributed and used. Copyright covers anything you create in a “fixed tangible form” such as research articles in a journal, chapters in a textbook, dissertations, websites, or even the code of software you designed.
The publisher should be able to prove they have copyright. If you do not have rights to use images or text, you may have used alternative and openly available materials. If you have questions, you can contact a member of the scholarly communication team for further help.
If the use would not be considered a "fair use" (see section below), then reserve staff will attempt to obtain copyright permission from the rights holder. If you have specific questions related to an intended use for your course, please contact us.
There are many exceptions within copyright law that allow for scholars and teachers to make use of copyrighted materials in their work. The most common of these exceptions is what is known as “fair use.” Fair use is highly case-specific, so if you have questions about such uses, please contact a member of the scholarly communication team with details about your intended use.
License agreements permit publishers in most academic journals to take copyright from you thereby removing your ability to disseminate the work elsewhere, meaning that access to the work is only available to those with a subscription to that journal.
License agreements, however, can be used in other ways. Many open access journals allow authors to retain their copyright and thus their ability to disseminate the work through other channels.
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