More on Copryight & Reserves

• What is the Public Domain?
• Permissions
• Material from Databases and eJournals
• Using Web Resources
• Faculty Created Material

The Public Domain:

The public domain refers to material not protected by copyright. Anyone can use material in the public domain without permission. Some material, such as that created by an employee of the U.S. federal government, in their official capacity, automatically enters the public domain upon creation. However, most material enters the public domain due to the expiration of the copyright term. Generally, any material published in the United States prior to 1923 or published outiside the United States prior to 1909 is in the public domain and can be used without permission.

Permissions:

If the copyrighted material you would like to use in not within the public domain and your use of the work is not fair use, you need to obtain permission from the copyright owner. In support of classroom instruction, Provost Lewis has generously created a special fund for the Libraries to pay for permissions. This fund is separate from the budget for new library materials. If a reserve assignment seems to exceed the threshold of fair use, the Libraries will seek and pay applicable permissions fees on those materials as a service for the faculty. Please contact Lisa Macklin for more information.

Material from Databases and eJournals:

The Emory Libraries provide access to a number of databases and electronic journals by subscription agreement with vendors. Examples of major vendors of electronic resources include EBSCO, JSTOR, Project Muse, and Lexis Nexis. The Libraries maintain a full list of all databases and eJournals with current subscription agreements.

In many cases the license agreements with the vendors or publishers of these materials specifically address whether or not content may be downloaded and re-posted to an electronic reserves system. Since the answer to this question is uneven and there are so many licenses to consider, Reserves policy is TO LINK TO ANY DATABASE OR eJOURNAL CONTENT, rather than downloading the document and uploading it into ReservesDirect.

Library staff reviews uploaded and faxed content, and any database or eJounal content will be changed to links or removed if they are in breach of any library contract. IT IS ALWAYS SAFEST TO LINK. If you have any questions about how best to link to database and eJournal content, please contact the Reserves Team .

Using Web Resources:

When including web resources in e-reserve, simply link to the webpage from Reserves Direct. Linking is preferable to scanning or making a digital copy.

One should assume that all material published on the web is copyrighted. Copyright law no longer requires a copyright owner to place a copyright notice or symbol on copyrighted material. Therefore, unless the webpage specifically states that anyone can use the work for any purpose, one should assume that “all rights are reserved.”

However, some copyright owners prefer to share their work with the public, and one way to do this is through a Creative Commons License. Creative Commons is a way for copyright owners to allow others to use their work, under certain conditions. Copyright owners can choose from several licensing options and allow the public to use their work with certain restrictions like non-commercial use or with proper attribution.

Including Faculty Created Content:

Faculty created material can be included in e-reserves. Such material includes exams, quizzes, course notes, course syllabi, and journal articles for which the faculty member retained copyright.

Many publishers use traditional publication agreements which require that all rights, including copyright, transfer to the journal publisher. Consequently, if you have transferred your copyright to the journal and later want to post your article in e-reserves, you may have to ask for permission from the journal publisher.

One way to avoid this issue in the future is to carefully read all your publication agreements and negotiate with the publisher. This can be done by adding the SPARC Author Addendum to your publication agreement. The addendum modifies the publication agreement to allow the author to retain some rights, including the ability to post the article to e-reserve.

For more information about copyright, fair use, or permissions, please contact:

Lisa Macklin, Director, Emory Libraries IP Rights Office