Comply with Copyright and Fair Use guidelines in Course Material
The College community should be aware of compliance when using copyrighted material.
When possible, one option may be to use copyright-free material or material in the public domain. Creative Commons is an organization that allows creators to set the terms for how their work can be used, generally allowing free use yet requiring one to attribute them as the creator. For suggestions for multimedia projects, see our Copyright-free Media article.
Fair Use of Copyrighted Material
- U.S. Copyright Office Fair use code
- U.S. Copyright Office ruling circumvention of technology to use copyrighted material
- The Center for Media & Social Impact (CMSI)
Use Moodle or OneDrive/Teams
Copyrighted material that is intended to be uploaded online must meet the criteria for Fair Use. Posting on websites that are password protected and only accessible by students enrolled in the class improves the argument that a particular excerpt or clip is fair use. Moodle and OneDrive/Teams provide such an environment for Wooster faculty and students. Please consider other fair use factors, including the amount you are using from an entire work and the nature of the original work.
Don’t allow public access
Make sure copyrighted materials on Moodle or course site are not available for guest (public) access. By default, Moodle sites do not allow guest access.
Link to existing materials where possible
For example, instead of quoting extensively from an article posted on Wooster’s website about Wooster’s Promise campaign (citing the author, date, publisher and title), you can link to the article.
Don’t re-digitize material
Before digitizing material, first check if it is already available electronically at Wooster. For example, if you want to scan a chapter of a book, first see the Libraries’ e-reserve guide and contact your library liason to check if the book is already available in digital form.
Reproduce only the minimum amount of materials
Once you decide which sections of works you will need for class purposes, distribute only those sections — not the complete works. For example, if an assignment involves only a single scene in a movie, provide access only to that clip — not the entire movie.
Present materials in the format that is least easily copied
For example, if you want to make a song available online, post it as a streaming media file, instead of making it available as a downloadable file.
Check the copyright status of the work
If you are using materials in a manner that would require permission from a copyright holder, you can check the copyright status of a work through the U.S. Copyright Office’s Search Copyright Records: Registrations and Documents site. (Please note that its online databases contain records only from 1978 forward, and may not include records for the most recent copyright registrations.)
Other Resources
Copyright Term and Public Domain in the United States
Cornell’s
Copyright Information Center lists types of works and where they fall
within the copyright term or public domain in the US.
Copyright and Fair Use
A
Web site from Stanford University that provides news on copyright and
fair use issues and resources to further understand copyright and fair
use.
Understanding Creative Commons
A basic explanation on how Creative Commons works along side Copyright law and how it applies to your personal work.
Copyright Crash Course
A Web site from University of Texas that provides a thorough introduction to copyright and fair use.
Know your Copy Rights
This site looks at copyright from the perspectives of all key academic stakeholders and suggests what each group can do to enhance their copyright practices and advance academic interests.