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Copyright: COVID-19 Notice

COVID-19 Update

As we move to distributed or blended learning models due to the COVID-19 outbreak, we’ll be using more resources online. Copyright laws still need to be followed. UNBC’s Fair Dealing Guidelines and Copyright Guidelines can help guide your usage of materials, but here are some recommendations that can help.

  • UNBC has purchased many eBooks and journals that you and your students can use in your classes. Please use these when possible. Some platforms, such as ProQuest ebook central, are expanding access to unlimited users for the next few months to facilitate use of purchased resources in virtual classrooms.
    • If you are having difficulty finding or accessing an eResource, please report the problem using this form. We are actively monitoring these and can address issues as they arrive.  
  • While the Copyright Act and Supreme Court has not given guidelines on what a fair amount of copying is, UNBC has adopted the stance recommended by CARL – an article from a journal, a single chapter from a book or up to 10% from a single work. The extenuating circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 outbreak would likely broaden the amount that could be considered fair beyond this, but continue to use a “reasonableness” test when determining what you think would be considered fair.
  • Please keep any Copyright-protected works you upload on Moodle or behind a password protected firewall and not on any open webpages.
  • Breaking digital locks is not allowed by the Copyright Act, even if the underlying use would be non-infringing. Copying a DVD movie or television episode to Moodle could generally only be done by circumventing digital locks. Please do not do this. Rather, videos are available on Kanopy, Academic Video Online,  National Film Board and a few other platforms that can be streamed by students from home. Alternatively, you can have students create accounts on https://gem.cbc.ca/ and watch videos there (the library cannot create an account on that platform for the university).  Your liaison librarians are happy to help you find alternate material for your courses.  Please get in touch your appropriate liaison librarian (https://library.unbc.ca/about/staff-directory).
  • We encourage the use of Open Access and Open Educational Resources. The Copyright Guide (fourth tab) provides some suggestions.
  • Interlibrary Loan departments across Canada have stopped loaning print books, but digital copies of chapters and articles can still be ordered.
  • If you need a chapter of a book copied/digitized for your class from the library collection, please contact me and we’ll get that for you.

 

If you have any questions at all, please contact Library Copyright and we can help with any clarification or pursue required licenses. We want to provide all the necessary resources for the students.