::The Center for Paper Business and Industry Studies::

CENTER FOR PAPER BUSINESS AND INDUSTRY STUDIES

Guidelines on the Distribution of Copyrighted Materials

As a reminder, anyone at CPBIS can make a copy (electronic or not) of copyrighted material (article, etc...) as long as the material is for his/her own use (called personal use). Under Fair Use guidelines, an individual can distribute one full copy to another person, just like sharing a book. But for purposes of CPBIS-related work, it is contrary to Fair Use to distribute the material to CPBIS groups or stakeholders (e.g. CPBIS Principal Investigators, members of the IAB, or CPBIS researchers). Individual use for purposes of scholarly research still falls under the category of personal use. Mass information sharing should be done by distributing the URL or the reference information of the article (title of the article is allowed) or the abstract since URLs and bibliographic data are not copyrighted.

If someone from CPBIS wants to distribute material whose copyright is not held by CPBIS, then the process is as follows:

Check whether the document explicitly states that it is in the public domain (government document for instance) or that it is not copyrighted:

1) If the document is in the public domain or is not copyrighted, then there is no problem. Distribution within and outside of CPBIS is allowed and one can distribute the material at will. As a courtesy, always cite the source and author;

2) If the document doesn't explicitly say it is in the public domain, then one can safely assume that it is copyrighted - even if the © logo is not present. There are 3 possibilities

i. Single recipient / Full text:
A CPBIS person can send the entire article to only one person as this is consistent with Fair Use guidelines;

ii. Multiple recipients / Full text:
CPBIS must obtain permission from the copyright holder (oftentimes the publisher or editor) if the material is to be used for any of the following tasks:
a. to distribute it as it is inside CPBIS,
b. to display it as it is on the CPBIS website,
c. to send it as it is by e-mail or paper copies or any other mean to CPBIS IAB members, CPBIS Researchers, or any others.

In these cases, CPBIS must obtain written permission (or an e-mail giving authorization) by the copyright holder (e.g. editor or publisher). If permission for distributing or otherwise using the material is given, please provide a copy of this permission to Ms. Charley Burney who will hold all copyright permissions. Note email is acceptable as it has as much legal significance as print materials.

iii. Multiple Recipients / Extract(s) of the text:
Extract(s) of the Copyrighted material may be used without permission of the holder, if it is used as a basis for critical comment, news reporting, parody, or educational purposes within a range of reasonableness, described in part under the Fair Use guidelines of the 1976 Copyright Act.

Footnote:
Copyrights may be held by authors, their publishers, or a third party. It is usually helpful to start by contacting the publisher for information that will guide you in your search for the copyright holder.
Nowadays it is no longer a requirement for the copyright symbol © to be present to protect an author, so we cannot rely on its absence to ensure that the document is not copyrighted. By default, a published document is copyrighted.

Rev. Oct 20, 2004