Copyright

In order to help users navigate the particulars of applying copyright law, a number of policies and guidelines have been developed for the university community. The fair dealing policy in particular should be noted, as fair dealing has been recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada as an important user’s right, and the Copyright Act has established purposes such as research, private study, and education as benefiting from this right. The links of the left side menu of this page provide you with access to the relevant policies and licensing information regarding the use and creation of copyright protected works at the University of Regina.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Below are guidelines to help you apply fair dealing in your educational work. You may find it helpful to consult with the copyright officer on specific cases. Also check out our video: fair dealing explained.

Adapted from the AUCC Fair Dealing Policy dated October 9, 2012

The fair dealing provision in the Copyright Act permits use of a copyright-protected work without permission from the copyright owner or the payment of copyright royalties. To qualify for fair dealing, two tests must be passed.

First, the “dealing” must be for a purpose stated in the Copyright Act: research, private study, criticism, review, news reporting, education, satire or parody. Educational use of a copyright-protected work passes the first test.

The second test is that the dealing must be "fair." In landmark decisions in 2004 and in 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada provided guidance as to what this test means in educational institutions.

The Fair Dealing Guidelines apply fair dealing in non-profit universities and provides reasonable safeguards for the owners of copyright-protected works in accordance with the Copyright Act and the Supreme Court decisions.

Guidelines

1. Teachers, instructors, professors and staff members in non-profit universities may communicate and reproduce, in paper or electronic form, short excerpts from a copyright-protected work for the purposes of research, private study, criticism, review, news reporting, education, satire or parody.
2. Copying or communicating short excerpts from a copyright-protected work under the Fair Dealing Guidelines for the purpose of news reporting, criticism or review must mention the source and, if given in the source, the name of the author or creator of the work.
3. A copy of a short excerpt from a copyright-protected work may be provided or communicated to each student enrolled in a class or course:
   1. as a class handout
   2. as a posting to a learning or course management system that is password protected or otherwise restricted to students of the university
   3. as part of a course pack
4. A short excerpt means:
   1. up to 10% of a copyright-protected work (including a literary work, musical score, sound recording, and an audiovisual work)
   2. one chapter from a book
   3. a single article from a periodical
   4. an entire artistic work (including a painting, print, photograph, diagram, drawing, map, chart, and plan) from a copyright-protected work containing other artistic works
   5. an entire newspaper article or page
   6. an entire single poem or musical score from a copyright-protected work containing other poems or musical scores
   7. an entire entry from an encyclopedia, annotated bibliography, dictionary or similar reference work
5. provided that in each case, no more of the work is copied than is required in order to achieve the allowable purpose.

5. Copying or communicating multiple short excerpts from the same copyright-protected work, with the intention of copying or communicating substantially the entire work, is prohibited.
6. Copying or communicating that exceeds the limits in the Fair Dealing Guidelines may be referred to the Copyright and Scholarly Communications Librarian for evaluation. An evaluation of whether the proposed copying or communication is permitted under fair dealing will be made based on all relevant circumstances.
7. Any fee charged by the university for communicating or copying a short excerpt from a copyright-protected work must be intended to cover only the costs of the university, including overhead costs.

*Note: Currently the University of Regina does not rely on Fair Dealing in the production of Course Packs. Copyright is cleared through the rights holders, publishers or third party vendors.

The information provided on this site is offered as general guidance only, not as legal advice.

Intellectual property (IP) is the result of intellectual or artistic activity, created by a member of the university in a scholarly, professional, or student capacity that can be owned by a person. Some examples of IP are inventions, publications, computer software, works of art, or industrial and artistic designs. Depending on the type of intellectual property, they are protected under different kinds of legislation such as patent, copyright, industrial design, or trademark laws.

You can find the U of R intellectual property policy here.

Use of Copyrighted Materials Policy
https://www.uregina.ca/policy/browse-policy/policy-GOV-050-010.html