Copyright
Questions?
If you have any questions, or if you would like more information, please contact:
Ellen Phillips - Director, Open Educational Resources & Intellectual Property, e.phillips@snhu.edu (603.652.1900)
Fair Use
The Fair Use Doctrine is outlined in Title 17, Chapter 1, Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Code. The Fair Use Doctrine allows for limited use of copyrighted materials without the creator’s permission. Typical examples of use that may fall under the fair use defense include commentary, criticism, news, research, teaching, scholarship, or citation. However, it is important to note that just because a copy of a protected work is made or used for educational purposes, it does not automatically fall under the Fair Use Doctrine. Rather, courts use a variety of factors in determining whether any given circumstance constitutes fair use, including:
- The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for a nonprofit educational purpose;
- The nature of the copyrighted work;
- The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
- The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
The following links offer additional information on the Fair Use Doctrine:
- SNHU Fair Use EvaluatorSNHU has created a tool to help you evaluate the relative strength of a potential fair use argument.
- Cornell Checklist for Conducting a Fair Use Analysis This link opens in a new windowCornell has prepared a worksheet that can be used to help apply the Fair Use Doctrine.
- Reproduction of Copyrighted Works by Educators and Librarians This link opens in a new windowUnited States Copyright Office's guide to reproducing works by others in an educational setting.
Obtaining Permission
To obtain permission to use a copyrighted work, the copyright holder must be contacted. You can do this yourself or you can pay the Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. to obtain it for you.
Here are some resources on how to determine if a work is protected by copyright and how to identify who the rights holder is.
- Copyright Public Records Portal This link opens in a new windowSearch the U.S. Copyright office to see if a work was registered in the United States. Note that works do not necessarily have to be registered or published in order to be protected by copyright.
- Sherpa Romeo This link opens in a new windowAn online resource that aggregates and presents publisher and journal open access policies from around the world. If you have a journal article you can check to see if it is available under an open access (OA) agreement.
- Stanford's Copyright Renewal Database This link opens in a new windowA searchable index of the copyright renewal records for books published in the US between 1923 and 1963.Note that the database includes only renewal records, not original registrations, and only Class A (book) renewals received by the US Copyright Office between 1950 and 1992.
- The Authors Registry This link opens in a new windowA not-for-profit clearinghouse for payments to authors, receiving royalties from organizations and distributing them to U.S. authors.
- Third-Party Permissions and How to Clear Them This link opens in a new window"This guide provides information about the permissions process, with a special focus on textual permissions and image permission and highlighting the different issues involved with these two types of permission where applicable.""Our guide walks authors through the permissions process, beginning with an overview of copyright and publication contracts to help readers understand why permissions are required in the first place. Then, we explain circumstances in which permission is not required (like when the use of third-party materials is a fair use or the materials are in the public domain) to help authors determine whether to request permission in the first place. Next, we offer some tips on how to identify and locate a rightsholder and go over the process of actually securing the permission. Finally, we conclude with a discussion of potential options for authors who are unable to obtain permission after making a concerted effort to do so.
Our new guide covers both text and image permissions, and we note throughout where these two types of permissions work differently. We created the guide with the goal of making the permissions clearance process as clear and comprehensible as possible in order to demystify a part of the publication process that can be intimidating for first time and veteran authors alike."