UNBC's copyright policy was created to comply with the Canadian Copyright Act. Our fair dealing policy is based on a model by AUCC, ACCC, and Grant McEwan and was created to follow precedent set by the SCC. Below are important copyright cases and legislation guiding copyright in Canada.

The UNBC Copyright Office offers many copyright services. These include: 

• Reviewing Course Syllabi 
• Providing copyright education and help with copyright-related questions 
  • Send an email or schedule an appointment
• Creating PDF copies and permanent links for Moodle
• Arranging permissions, licenses, and copyright clearance
• Teaching workshops & answering individual copyright queries

If you have any other questions, please email or call the Copyright Office directly.

Fair dealing is an integral part of the copyright legislation and outlines the terms of the use of material for the purposes of research, private study, criticism, review, news reporting, parody, satire and education. The 6 point Fair Dealing test includes the following criteria:

• Purpose of the use - Is the use for commercial purposes or educational/charitable use?
• Character of the dealing - Are you making multiple copies or a single copy? Will it be widely distributed and have limited distribution? Will the use be on-going or is it a one-off or isolated use?
• Importance/Amount of Work Copied - Are you using a significant excerpt? The whole work? Or is the amount you want to use limited or a trivial amount?
• Effect of Dealing on the Original Work - Will your use be competing with the original work? Would it deter someone from purchasing the original work? Or does your use cause little or no detriment to the original work?
• Nature of the Work - Is the work confidential? Perhaps unpublished? Or was it published in the public interest?
• Available Alternatives - Could you achieve your purpose without using the work? Or is the work necessary to achieve your purpose?

The licence terms for our electronic resources show whether these materials can be used in eReserves, posted to Moodle, included in print coursepacks, or shared as links.

You can access these licence terms in three ways:

On item records in General Search: Click the icon labelled "Notes and License Terms", below the "View full text" button.

If you do not see the "Notes and License Terms" icon: this means the article is located in multiple databases. The "Notes and License Terms" icon appears after you click "View Full Text" button:

On journal records in the A to Z Journal list: Click on the "Notes" icon to view licence terms

On databases records: Under the database title, click "Permitted Uses", or click the name of the database:

*Please note - in a few cases, select journals (such as Harvard Business Review) have specialized permissions that are different from those in the database. These will be noted on the journals/articles within the database and normally don't show on the record.