Copyright

Please note that this is intended to provide general information only and is not to be construed as legal advice on copyright.

Overview

This video is from Module 1: An Introduction to the CARL Copyright Training Modules, by the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), and is used under a CC BY-NC 4.0 licence.

Copyright in Canada

In Canada, copyright is governed by the Copyright Act (R.S.C. 1985, c. C-42). The law aims to balance the rights of creators with the rights of users.

Copyright automatically applies to original and fixed literary, musical, artistic, and dramatic works such as books, articles, videos, music, paintings, photographs, digital works, broadcasts, and performances.

The Act provides copyright owners with the sole right to produce, reproduce, copy, publish, perform, or distribute their copyrighted work or substantial parts thereof. Copyright infringement occurs when anyone engages in these activities without the consent of the copyright holder, who is usually the author or creator of the work.

The Copyright Act does provide exceptions for special circumstances such as education and research.

When and how to use copyrighted materials

The Copyright Act provides certain exceptions to copyright infringement. These are regarded as users' rights and are essential to furthering the public interest, including encouraging the wider public dissemination of works.

Reproduction, adaptation, distribution, or performance of a copyrighted work is allowed IF:

it is considered fair dealing
a licence, commercial or open, authorizes its use
permission is granted by the copyright holder
other copyright law exceptions apply
it is in the public domain
it is an unsubstantial part of the work that is properly cited

Fair dealing of copyrighted works

This video is from Module 5: The Balancing Act: User Rights, by the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL), and is used under a CC BY-NC 4.0 licence.

Summary of fair dealing

To qualify for fair dealing, two conditions must be met:

1. Allowable Purpose: The use must be for research, private study, education, parody, satire, criticism, review, or news reporting. Courts apply a large and liberal interpretation of these purposes, particularly in post-secondary educational contexts.

2. Is the dealing fair: Whether the dealing is fair depends on relevant circumstances, including:

Purpose of the dealing - non-commercial purposes and proper safeguards favor fairness
Character of the dealing - single copies and temporary use favor fairness
Amount used - smaller portions relative to the whole work favor fairness
Available alternatives - lack of reasonable alternatives favors fairness
Nature of the work - non-confidential and publicly intended works favor fairness
Market effects - minimal impact on the original work's commercial market favors fairness

Fair dealing is assessed case-by-case based on overall impression rather than meeting rigid requirements. All relevant factors must be considered and weighed together in determining whether the dealing outweighs any negative effects on the original work.

Fair dealing flowchart

This flowchart was adapted from the Fair dealing flowchart by Concordia Library and is used under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.

Guidelines for copying or communicating short excerpts

Universities Canada has proposed Fair dealing guidelines. These should not be considered a definitive formula for determining whether something qualifies as “fair dealing”. Fair dealing is case-specific and depends on context.

Copyright Law may permit certain copying that is not specifically described under these fair dealing guidelines.

Copying or communicating short excerpts from a work for the allowable purposes identified in the summary above is acceptable if:

The copy is a “Short Excerpt” containing no more of a Work than is required in order to achieve the Allowable Purpose, which is either:
- up to 10% of a Work; or
- no more than:
  - one chapter from a book;
  - a single article from a periodical;
  - entire artistic work (including a painting, print, photograph, diagram, drawing, map, chart and plan) from a Work containing other artistic works;
  - an entire newspaper article or page;
  - an entire entry from an encyclopedia, annotated bibliography, dictionary or similar reference work,

whichever is greater.

A single copy of a Short Excerpt from a Work may only be provided to students registered, enrolled or engaged in a university course, as follows:
1. as a class handout;
2. as a posting to a learning or course management system that is password-protected or otherwise restricted to, and accessible only by, students in the specific university course;
  1. or as part of a course pack compiled by the university bookstore,

and it is recommended (if practical) to include a notice indicating that Short Excerpts are being copied in reliance on fair dealing, and advising students to only use materials for their personal Allowable Purposes, and not to communicate or share materials with others.

Multiple short excerpts from the same work cannot be combined if this would exceed the copying limits set out in point 1 above.
When copying short excerpts for news reporting, criticism, or review, the source must be cited and the author's or creator's name included if it appears in the original work.

Using copyrighted materials beyond fair dealing

Licences

Licences are contracts that regulate the reproduction and use of works. Licenses take precedence over terms set out in the Copyright Act. Below are common types of licenses seen in academic settings:

Vendor licenses

Vendor licenses set out the terms of use of the content in databases containing content such as ebooks or journal articles. These licenses are specific to each product provided by a vendor. For example, some licenses may allow articles to be sent by email, and others may not. The terms of these product-specific licenses will take precedence over any competing terms in the Copyright Act.

For assistance in determining license terms of a given online library resource, please contact your liaison librarian or consult the Library’s Usage Rights Database. This resource has information about licence restrictions for many of the Library’s databases and digital resources.

Creative Commons licenses

Creative Commons licenses are granted by copyright holders, usually authors/creators themselves, to allow a range of uses of a given work that will be much broader than that normally allowed under exceptions to copyright law.

While an author retains their copyright, a Creative Commons license grants others permission to copy, republish, or even transform their work. These permissions usually come with conditions, such as limiting use to non-commercial purposes and requiring that the original author is always given attribution.

Find out more (video)

Permission from copyright holder

When the use of a copyright-protected work cannot be accommodated under the fair dealing exception or another exception under the Copyright Act, or when the use is not already allowed under the terms of a license, it may be necessary to seek permission for the use from the work’s copyright holder.

For example, to include a graph or a diagram from a journal article in a thesis or a conference presentation slide, it would normally be necessary to obtain permission for this from the publisher of the journal (assuming that the journal holds the copyright). The public availability of the published thesis or conference presentation takes the use of the graph or diagram beyond such fair dealing purposes of education, research or private study.

To obtain permission, it will be necessary to:

Allow perhaps 6-8 weeks for obtaining a permission
Identify the copyright holder; sometimes this is clear from a copyright statement in the publication
Make the request either by using a form provided by a publisher or by writing a letter to the copyright holder to explain the intended use of the work.
Pay a royalty fee if required
Retain copies of all correspondence (copyright permissions must be in writing)
Use the work as permitted

Examples of model permission letters:

Other copyright law exceptions

The Copyright Act contains a series of exceptions other than fair dealing. The following was adapted from Concordia Library’s Copyright Guide:

Educational exceptions (s. 29.4)

Under certain conditions, educational institutions or persons acting under their authority can make limited copies for instruction and examinations. Find out more.

Work available through the internet (s. 30.04)

Works available through the internet can be reproduced or performed for students if attribution is provided to the creator, there are no technological protection measures restricting its access (eg. passwords), and the work is posted online with the consent of the copyright owner. Find out more.

Libraries, museums and archives exceptions (s. 30.1)

Canadian libraries, archives and museums benefit from doing anything that individuals may do for themselves so long as it is for private study, research, education, parody, satire, criticism or review. For example, libraries are allowed to make a copy of an article requested by a faculty member through the library catalogue. Find out more.

Exception for persons with perceptual disabilities (s. 32)

The Copyright Act allows copying, translation, adaptation and reproduction of literary, musical, artistic or dramatic works to create a document in a format specifically designed for persons with perceptual disabilities. This exception does not apply in cases where the work is commercially available in an appropriate format or for cinematographic works. Find out more.

Public domain

Materials in the public domain can be used freely without seeking permission or paying fees. They may be copied, shared, modified, and performed without restriction. The public domain encompasses two main categories:

works that were never eligible for copyright protection (such as basic facts, ideas, and simple phrases)
works whose copyright protection has expired due to age.

In Canada, copyright typically ends 70 years following an author's death, though different rules apply to various types of creative works. Sound recordings and films follow distinct timelines, with specific provisions outlined in the Copyright Act (see “Term of Copyright,” sections 6 through 12). Once this protection period concludes, these works become freely available for public use.

Caution!

New editions of older works

Not all older works are in the public domain! Classic works by an author like Charles Dickens are now free from copyright. However, modern editions of these works often include new copyrightable elements such as contemporary introductions, scholarly annotations, translations, or editorial commentary. These are all protected by copyright, even though the underlying classical text remains in the public domain.

Copyright around the world

Copyright expiration varies by country, creating a complex landscape where a work might be freely usable in one nation but still protected in another. The location where content is used and distributed typically determines which copyright laws apply.

Insubstantial copying

Copyright law protects both complete works and significant portions of them. This means that using minor, insubstantial portions of copyrighted material may be permissible without requiring permission from the copyright holder.

Determining what constitutes "substantial" versus "insubstantial" use requires careful evaluation, as the Copyright Act doesn't provide a specific definition. This is normally assessed on a case-by-case basis, considering both the quantity copied and its importance to the original work. Context matters significantly: while several sentences from a lengthy novel might be deemed insubstantial, even a single line from a short poem could be considered substantial if it captures the essence of that work.

In academic settings, proper attribution remains essential for academic integrity. Failure to credit sources appropriately may constitute plagiarism regardless of copyright implications. Consult your liaison librarian for determining appropriate quotation lengths and usage practices.

Additional information

Accessibility

The Copyright Act makes allowance for the creation or provision of alternative/adaptive formats for the use of persons with perceptual disabilities. Find out more by visiting the Library and Archives Accessibility Services guide.

Coursepacks

Any necessary copyright permissions for the use of copyrighted content in course packs will normally be sought by the course pack production service on behalf of the course instructor requesting the course pack. It is important to ensure that all necessary copyright clearance is being carried out by the course pack service.

Contact

For further information on copyright

Please contact your liaison librarian or write to copyright@laurentian.ca.

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