Copying guidelines

These guidelines are sourced from the University of Victoria Fair Dealing Guidelines - part of UVic Policy IM7310 Copyright Compliance and Administration.

You may communicate and reproduce, in paper or electronic format, short excerpts from a copyright-protected work for the purposes of research, private study, criticism, review, news reporting, education, satire or parody. The copy must include a full citation of the source (e.g. title, author, year of publication, pages etc.).

A copy of a short excerpt may be provided or communicated to each student enrolled in a class or course:

• • as a class handout,
  • as a posting to a course management system (e.g. Course Reserves, Brightspace, etc.) that is password protected or restricted to students of the university, or
  • as part of a coursepack.

A short excerpt means: 

• up to 10% of a copyright-protected work (including a literary work, musical score, sound recording, and audiovisual work) OR one chapter from a book
• a single article from a periodical
• an entire artistic work (including a painting, print, photograph, diagram, drawing, map, chart, and plan) from a copyright-protected work containing other artistic works
• an entire newspaper article or page
• an entire single poem or musical score from a copyright-protected work containing other poems or musical scores
• an entire entry from an encyclopedia, annotated bibliography, dictionary or similar reference work.

    provided that in each case, no more of the work is copied than is required in order to achieve the allowable purpose.

Copying or communicating multiple short excerpts from the same copyright-protected work, with the intention of copying or communicating substantially the entire work, is prohibited.

*Remember that linking to material, legally posted online, is always permissible as an alternative to copying.*

Please include a fair dealing statement in any materials that you share with your students.

Copying or communicating that exceeds the limits of the above guidelines may be referred to UVic’s Copyright Office for evaluation. An evaluation of whether the proposed copying or communication is permitted under fair dealing will be made based on all relevant circumstances. Faculty members determining fair dealing for course materials may consult the copyright flowchart. If materials exceed fair dealing amounts, permission must be obtained from the copyright holder.