Copyright balances the rights of creators with the rights of the public to use a work without permission or payment. Under copyright, authors have the right to control the use of their work, subject to the exceptions permitted under the law. While copyright issues can be complex, everyone needs to understand the basics. Failure to comply with copyright law can lead to substantial legal penalties for both you and the university.
Fair use is a concept embedded in U.S. law that recognizes that certain uses of copyright-protected works do not require permission from the copyright holder. (See Title 17, section 107). The fair use exception allows the use of copyrighted materials without obtaining permission, based on a four-factor analysis. Each factor is given equal weight, and the type of technology used to perform or display the material is irrelevant to the outcome. The goal is to achieve a balance between the rights of the copyright holder and the rights of the public.
The Fair Use Doctrine is probably the most important exemption to copyright protections for educational settings, allowing many uses of copyrighted works for the purposes of teaching and research. The complexity of fair use and its importance in academia make it imperative that every member of the Sewanee community understands how to make judgments concerning fair use.
The following four factors are used to determine if a use is fair:
* Not all uses in an academic context are automatically considered fair use!
Please submit ALL permission requests here. A Circulation Staff member will begin the process of acquiring permission and will contact you if permission is denied or any other Fair Use issues exist.
Permission from copyright holders is often needed when creating course materials, research papers, and websites. The Library obtains permission for works when it is used in a way that infringes on the exclusive rights granted to a copyright holder (i.e. outside the boundaries of Fair Use).
At the University of the South, the Circulation Department in the Library serves as our Copyright Clearance Office. We use a variety of methods to obtain copyright permission and require ample time to process these requests.
It’s important to know a few basics about copyright, especially as you distribute multiple copies of someone else’s work to your students. The Fair Use Doctrine helps us evaluate the limits to which we can use a copyrighted work, and when we have to pay for permission to use it.
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