Technology

Policies

Copyright

As a community of scholars, Simmons College subscribes to the belief that intellectual property rights should be respected and honored, and that fair and appropriate use of published materials is both a legal and an ethical obligation that all members of the Simmons community should observe.

It is the policy of the college that all members abide by the relevant copyright laws. These laws include:

The Copyright Law of the United States of America
Title 17, U.S. Code, Sect. 101, et. seq.
General Revisions of the Copyright Law
Public Law 94-553 (effective January 1, 1978)
1998 Digital Millenium Copyright Act
Public Law 105-304
1998 Sonny Bono Term Extension Act
Public Law 105-298

The intent of the Simmons College Copyright Policy is to encourage scholarship conducted in the spirit of honest inquiry. Using the works of others obligates scholars to acknowledge such use whose works are protected by the law.

Employees who willfully disregard this policy or the law do so at their own risk and assume all liability for their actions.

The information appearing below is intended to assist members of the Simmons College community as they use materials that others have produced for teaching and research. The copyright laws cited in the Simmons College Copyright Policy (included in the Employee Handbook) are comprehensive, and they can be challenging to interpret and understand. The changing environment in electronic technologies makes compliance with copyright law in this area a particular challenge.

If you need advice regarding copyright, several staff on campus may be helpful. Please feel free to contact: the Director of Libraries (ext. 2754); the Director of Media Services (ext. 2761); the Director of Administrative Computing (ext. 2464); and/or the Webmaster (ext. 2669).

One word of caution with regard to copyright — if you are unsure if the materials is in the public domain or available for use, you should ask the copyright holder for permission to use the material. Infringement penalties and remedies can be significant.

Terms and Definitions

Compliance

It is the individual user's responsibility to comply with copyright law. You should permanently keep a copy in your files of any permission-to-use that you obtain.

If you plan to place the material in the Library for students to access, you should be sure to provide a copy of the permission-to-use document to the Library staff.

Definitions

A copyright grants to its owner the right to control an intellectual or artistic creation, to prohibit others from using the work in specific ways without permission, and to profit from the sale and performance of the work. Under current statutes, copyright protection extends to not only copies of the written word and recordings of sound, but visual images such as photographs or illustration or animated images such as motion pictures or videotapes. It also extends to live performances that are taped as they are broadcast. No protection is available for an idea/procedure, process, system, method of operation, concept, principle, or discovery, no matter how unique. Copyright protection is available only for an expression of the idea.

The owner of the copyright is granted five exclusive rights to ensure the opportunity to exploit the work for profit. These rights are: reproduction, distribution, adaptation, performance, and display.

What is copyright protected

Copyright protects "original works of authorship" that are fixed in a tangible form of expression. The works need not be directly perceptible, so long as they may be communicated directly or with the aid of a machine or device. Copyrightable works include the following categories:

1. literary works;
2. musical works, including any accompanying words;
3. dramatic works, including any accompanying music;
4. pantomimes and choreographic works;
5. pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works;
6. motion pictures and other audiovisual works, including the individual images of the work;
7. sound recordings; and
8. architectural works.These categories should be viewed quite broadly: for example, computer programs and most "anthologies" are covered as "literary works"; maps and architectural plans are covered as "pictorial, graphic, and sculptural works."

A work is assumed to be copyrighted unless you can demonstrate that it is not.

Materials may be copyrighted even if published without a copyright notice.

Fair Use

Fair use is a legal principle that provides certain limitations on the exclusive right of copyright owners. There is no simple test to determine what is fair use. Section 107 of the Copyright Act sets forth the four fair use factors which should be assessed in each instance, based on the particular facts of a given case to determine whether a use is fair use:

1. What is the character of the use?
2. What is the nature of the work to be used?
3. How much of the work will you use?
4. What effect would this use have on the market for the original or for permissions if the use were widespread? All four factors must be weighed equally.

Use Guidelines

Copying Guidelines

Ordinarily, copying copyrighted material without the permission of the copyright owner is a violation of the exclusive rights of the copyright owner. The copyright act balances user rights by creating limited exemptions from these exclusive rights, such as allowing copying for face-to-face teaching or fair use. Under fair use, a teacher or researcher is allowed a rather limited amount of copying without the copyright owner's permission for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, or teaching. Furthermore, there are some works of which copying is completely unrestricted, and other types of materials of which unauthorized copying is always forbidden.

Unrestricted Copying

Anyone may copy, without restriction, works published prior to 1989 which do not have a copyright notice. Anyone may copy, without restriction, published works on which the copyright term and any renewals have expired. U.S. government publications may be copied without constraint, except to the extent that they contain copyrighted work from other sources. C-SPAN grants educators and degree granting educational institutions the right to tape any C-SPAN programs without receiving prior permission from the network, as long as taping is for school use and not for commercial sale or political purposes. This liberal copyright policy allows teachers to air C-SPAN live, record programs (at school or at home) for later use, assign students to watch a program, or to create their own videotapes for classroom use. Taped C-SPAN programs may be retained in perpetuity for future school use.

Print Materials — Fair Use Copying

Single Copies

For teaching, including preparation for teaching, and for scholarly research, an instructor may make, or have made at his or her individual request, a single copy of:

one chapter from a book;
one article from a periodical or newspaper;
one short story, essay, or short poem;
one chart, graph, diagram, drawing, cartoon, or picture from one book or periodical.

Multiple Copies

For one-time distribution in class to students, an instructor may make, or have made, multiple copies if he or she:

makes no more than one for each student; includes the notice of copyright;
makes no charge to the student beyond actual cost of photocopying;
the copying meets the tests of "brevity" and "spontaneity" and "cumulative effect".

Print Materials — Permission-Only Copying

Course Packs — Primary Course Materials

Copying shall not be used to create, replace, or substitute for, anthologies, compilations, or collective works. Such substitution copying is prohibited unless permission is obtained whether copies or various excerpts are accumulated as course packs or reproduced and handed out separately. Copying shall not be a substitute for the purchase of books or periodicals.

Consumable Works

There shall be no copying of or from works intended to be "consumable" in the course of studying or teaching. These include workbooks, exercises, standardized tests, test booklets and answer sheets, and similar consumable material.

Repetitive Copying

Copying of the same material by the same teacher from term to term is not legal without explicit permission.

Film and Video Use

Classroom Use

Possession of a film or video does not confer the right to show the work. The copyright owner specifies, at the time of purchase or rental, the circumstances in which a film or video may be "performed". Section 110 (1) of the Copyright Act of 1976 creates an exception to the copyright holder's exclusive right of performance.

The "face-to-face" exception allows an educator to perform a work (including home use video) in class, as long as the following criteria are met:
they must be shown as part of the instructional program;
they must be shown by students, instructors, or guest lecturers;
they must be shown either in a classroom or other school location devoted to instruction such as a studio, workshop, library, gymnasium, or auditorium if it is used for instruction;
they must be shown either in a face-to-face setting or where students and teacher(s) are in the same building or general area;
they must be shown only to students and educators;
they must be shown using a legitimate copy with the copyright notice included.Further, the relationship between the film or video and the course must be explicit. Films or videos, even in a face-to-face classroom setting, may not be used for entertainment or recreation, without the copyright holder's permission, whatever the work's intellectual content. These same conditions apply to audio recordings, slides, and other A.V. materials.

Other Use
Besides use in classrooms, films and videos that are owned by the College may ordinarily be viewed by students, faculty or staff at workstations or in small-group rooms. Larger audiences, such as groups that might assemble in a residence hall or living room, require explicit permission from the copyright owner for "public performance" rights. No fees for viewing a video are permitted even when public performance rights are obtained.

Film, Video, Media Conversion Guidelines
In general, it is legal to convert items you own, or that are owned by the college, to electronic form for your own scholarship or research. This includes scanning in photos, drawings, or slides, typing or scanning in text, or digital recording of audio materials. Such electronic copies fall under the category of "Single copy for Academic Use." One exception to this rule is the special treatment of movies, films, and video. It is not legal to convert these media into another form, e.g. converting a copyrighted video to computer video format. It is acceptable to extract still images from a video, including multiple still images, that do not exceed 10% of the video.

Video Recording Off-Air
Licenses may be obtained for copying and off-air recording. Absent a formal agreement, Guidelines for Off-the Air Recording of Broadcast Programming for Educational Purposes, an official part of the Copyright Act's legislative history, applies to most off-air recording:
Videotaped recordings may be kept for no more than 45 calendar days after the recording date, at which times the tapes must be erased unless the following occurs. The taped recordings may be viewed after the 10-day period only by instructors for evaluation purposes, that is, to determine whether to include the broadcast program in the curriculum in the future.
Videotaped recordings may be shown to students only within the first 10 school days of the 45-day retention period.
Off-air recordings must be made only at the request of an individual instructor for instructional purposes, not by staff in anticipation of later requests.
The recordings are to be shown to students no more than two times during the 10-day period and the second time only for necessary instructional reinforcement.
If several instructors request videotaping of the same program, duplicate copies are permitted to meet the need; all copies are subject to the same restrictions as the original recording.
The off-air recordings may not be physically or electronically altered or combined with others to form anthologies, but they need not necessarily be used or shown in their entirety.
All copies of off-air recordings must include the copyright notice on the broadcast program as recorded.

Visual Images

A "visual image" is a unique photographic representation of an object (e.g., an "original" 35mm slide) or a photographic reproduction of an object ("duplicate" slide), usually issued in multiple copies. The term "visual image" is used here to refer to representations or reproductions of works of art (painting, sculpture, decorative or craft objects, graphics media, drawings, collages, mixed media, and electronic media) and architecture, and also includes maps, diagrams, charts, and scientific drawings. Images are typically surrogates for the represented works; their intrinsic value is primarily as documentation of the original object (e.g., a slide representation of the Mona Lisa, a photograph of the Eiffel Tower, a color reproduction of an anatomical chart).

Visual images made from reproductions in books and journals for purposes such as teaching or research are understood to be fair use when photographic representations of the objects are no longer available or reasonably accessible from commercial vendors, the object's creator, or the owner of the work.

Current practice recognizes the need to use large quantities of projected images in a classroom (a typical art history lecture requires an average of 25-50 different images per class period). It is not uncommon for various images to be used the next time the course is offered. Multiple versions of the same object are commonly also presented. In practice, images are typically arranged in sequences or sets for comparison or contrast.

Assuming "fair use" of copyrighted materials in providing images for the purposes listed above, permissions are not necessary. Permission is required only if the use of the copyrighted image is for other purposes, such as publication, or in circumstances where profit and/or commercial advantage is the motive for the use.

Music

Music — Fair Use Copying
Copying is permitted for: emergency replacement of a purchased item; multiple copies of works for students (one per student) that does not exceed 10% of a work; a single copy of performances by students for evaluation purposes.

Music — Permission-Only Copying
Permission is required when: copying to create or replace or substitute for anthologies, compilations, or collective works: copying of or from works intended to be "consumable" in the course of study or teaching such as workbooks, exercises, standardized tests, answer sheets, and like material; copying for the purpose of performance (this may be permissible under some circumstances); copying for the purpose of substituting for the purchase of music; copying without inclusion of the copyright notice which appears on the printed copy.

Music — Other Issues
Other issues related to the copying of music include recording copyrighted works in phono records, the preparation of derivative works, distributing copyrighted music, and performing musical works. In general, it is not an infringement if: the performing is done in face-to-face teaching; if the performance of the work is on closed circuit tv to other classrooms or to disabled students for teaching purposes only; and, if there is no direct or indirect commercial advantage, including no fees paid to performers and no admission charge.

Multimedia — Fair Use
The Educational Multimedia Fair Use Guidelines outline what is permissible with regard to multimedia formats.

Creators of multimedia products may prepare a total of three copies; one for use, for preservation and replacement purposes only, and one copy may be placed on Library Reserve. Fair Use expires two years after the first instructional use of a particular multimedia product.
Motion Media — you may use up to 10% or 3 minutes of a source, whichever is less.
Music, Lyrics, Music Video — you may use up to 10% but not more than 30 seconds total from an individual work.
Numerical Data Sets — you may use up to 10% or 2500 fields or cell entries, whichever is less.

Computer Software

Copying software includes not only duplicating it but also transferring a program from one medium to another or transmitting the program over a local area network.

Note: The guidelines for classroom copying in not-for-profit educational institutions are explicitly limited to books and journals — they do not include computer programs.

You may adapt a program so that it can be used on office machines.

You may not obtain a single machine license and then make it available via a department or campus-wide network.
Lending
A library may lend a computer program for non-profit purposes. Loaned copies must carry a notice of copyright. Also, a library may lend a book with supplemental software on a disk or cdrom in the back pocket; this, too, must be for non-profit use and must carry a notice of copyright. Archiving copies
A library can make three copies of a program — one strictly for archival purposes, one as a master, and a third as a use copy.

Licensing
The college regularly "licenses" software programs for members of the academic community to use. Licenses are contracts between the vendor and the college that stipulate how a program may be used, by whom and under what conditions. Questions regarding any program that is licensed may be directed to the Director of Administrative Computing.

Web-related Copyright Information

Copyright law applies equally to works electronically available on the Web. The fact that you can view, download or print text and graphics does not mean that the material is unprotected. Nor does it mean that you are free to disseminate that work to others either electronically or in hard copy.

Reading, watching or listening
If a work is copyrighted and you have authorized access, you are free to read, watch or listen. Educational fair use may apply, even if you do not have authorized use, and such use should be made only after fair use criteria are reviewed.

Downloading
When you download material to your computer, you make an electronic copy. Unless your copy falls within fair use, you may not make this copy without authorization of the copyright owner.

If you are searching a commercial database that charges a fee, the payment of the fee may allow you to download or print the material. Such authorization is usually limited to a single copy for personal use.

Home Pages
You may put your own created text, graphics, audio or video on your Web page. If you use an item created by someone else whose copyright has not expired, then you should determine if permission is necessary.

By creating a web page you probably have given implied permission to others to link to your web page. You may link to another URL because links are like street addresses and may not be copyrightable. However, a list of links may be copyrightable under a compilation copyright and if you copy the entire list to your web page, it is likely to be a copyright violation.

Obtaining Permission

If you need to obtain Copyright permission to use published/produced materials for your course, the sample letters shown below list the kind of information that the publisher needs.

Materials placed on Library Reserve should be accompanied by a copy of the appropriate response letter from the publisher.

Materials placed on Library Reserve should also indicate, on the first page:
Book, Journal or Article Title; Author; Publisher; Date of Publication;
The phrase — "Reprinted with permission from (the copyright holder)"

FYI, the Association of American Publishers also lists on its home page how the AAP suggests you obtain permission.

Remember — requesting permission takes time, so please make requests early enough for the appropriate semester(s) in which you plan to use the material.

Sample Letter One
Sample Letter Two

Sample letter # 1:

Publisher
Rights & Permissions Dept.
Address

Dear Sir/Madam,
May I have your permission to photocopy the following materials for which you hold the copyright:
The Haitian Journal of Lt. Howard, York Hussar, 1796-1798
By Roger N. Buckley 1985
pp. 76-81, 100-110, 126-130, a total of 22 pages
30 copies, at cost, to be used in conjunction with the following class:
HIST 381: Rebellion and Revolution in Latin America

All appropriate attribution will be noted and the material will only be used for teaching purposes, to enhance reading from purchased texts.

Sincerely,
Dr. XX
History Dept.

Sample letter # 2: