Fair Use & Copyright: Home

Do you have additional questions or concerns about fair use and copyright? Schedule an appointment with a librarian to talk through options for your classes.

• Fair Use Evaluator- a self-guided series of questions designed to help you evaluate your use of a resource.
• Creative Commons- images made available for reuse for non-commercial purposes.
• ALA Guide on Copyright & Fair Use- used as a source for this guide and contains more detailed explanations.
• Drew University Guide on Fair Use- used as a source for this guide.

Permanent Solutions

1. Use a permalink to an electronic resource accessible through library subscriptions. You can locate resources through our database search or journal finder.
2. Create a course reserve to provide ongoing access to a print resource, searchable in our NOBLE catalog.
3. Link to resources available through Open Access or Open Educational Resources.
4. Provide copies of your own work, or, if you know the writer of the source, contact them to receive permission for ongoing educational use.

Temporary Solutions

1. Under fair use, create a copy for one course for one semester that is accessible only by student in that class. This solution is effective if you need to provide a current example that will change from semester to semester. This is not an effective solution if you need to reuse the source beyond this semester.
2. Contact the owner of the source to ask for permission to use the source for ongoing educational use.
3. Purchase a copyright clearance. Because copyright needs to be purchased for each use (semester) and each student, this option is often not financially viable for a long-term solution.

• Sharing a PDF of an article on Canvas for more than one semester.
• Copying worksheets from a single textbook that you bought.
• Copying more than 10% of a book to share with students.
• Showing a whole film as a reward at the end of the semester (for entertainment, not education).