What Can I Copy?

As a student, professor or staff member at Western you are permitted to copy certain materials under Canadian legislation and contract law. The governing legislation is the federal Copyright Act.   On your behalf, Western Libraries has negotiated licensing agreements with information vendors which secure additional rights for campus users.  In addition, the university has signed an agreement with Access Copyright (the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency) which provides users with additional copying permissions.

For example, you can copy material if:

• You are copying the material for the purpose of research, private study, criticism or review, news reporting, education, parody or satire, and the way you deal with the material is fair;
• The copying is permitted by a Western Libraries’ vendor licence;
• You are only copying an insubstantial portion of a work;
• The copy will be used to display the material in class at Western;
• It is no longer covered by copyright (copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 50 years);
• It is covered by an Open Access or Creative Commons licence (check the terms of the licence);
• It is published by the government of Canada or Ontario and is being used for noncommercial purposes; or,
• The copying is covered by the Access Copyright licence agreement.

Your rights to copy can be subject to certain conditions and limitations. The ‘Access Copyright - Print and Digital Copying Guidelines’ below, explains what you can do under the Access Copyright licence.

Western’s licence agreement with Access Copyright provides students, professors and staff with permission to copy within or in support of the university’s mandate, in addition to ways that are covered by fair dealing and other permitted uses under the Copyright Act.

Access Copyright - Print and Digital Copying Guidelines

What can I copy?

You can copy any published work in Access Copyright’s repertoire. Use the Access Copyright Repertoire Look-up Tool.

For published works in Access Copyright’s repertoire, you can:

• Photocopy, fax, scan and print.
• Store copies, such as on a hard drive, USB stick or on a Secure Network.
• Transmit by email, upload or post copies within a Secure Network.
• Project and display copies, such as on overheads, on LCD or Plasma monitors, or interactive whiteboards.
• Make copies for the purposes of interlibrary loan, creating alternate format copies and managing library collections.
• Create Course Collections.

Course collections are paper copies of published works assembled into coursepacks or digital copies of published works that are either emailed, linked or hyperlinked to, or posted on, uploaded to or stored on a Secure Network as part of a course of study.

How much can I copy?

You may copy up to 10% of a repertoire work or make a copy of a repertoire work that is:

• an entire article, short story, play, essay or poem, or a reproduction of an artistic work from a volume containing other published works.
• an entire article or page from a newspaper or periodical.
• an entire entry from an encyclopedia or similar reference work or an entire reproduction of an artistic work from a publication.
• one chapter of a book, provided the chapter is no more than 20% of that book.

You may copy up to 20% of a repertoire work or any of the above for a Course Collection and for certain library collection management purposes. This is a summary for ease of reference. For specific terms, please consult the Licence or specific publisher licences for library electronic subscriptions.

To learn more, please consult Western’s licensing agreement with Access Copyright or email Access Copyright at postsec@accesscopyright.ca.