What can I do if I want to give students access to more than a reasonable portion of a copyright work?
The Copyright Act 1968 permits the University to reproduce (copy) and communicate a reasonable portion of a copyright work, including making that reasonable portion available online. A reasonable portion is defined as 10% of one chapter of a book, or one article from an issue of a journal unless on the same subject matter in which case more than one article can be copied.
These limits are intended to be applied to a specific set of students for a specific unit, except in the case of work communicated via an intranet/learning or content management system/eReserve, where the limits are applied across the institution as a whole.
Teaching staff should adhere to these limits at all times. There may be occasions where teaching staff wish to reproduce and communicate more than these limits. In these instances, consider these options:
- Consider if there is value in in identifying for students an alternative resource that could supplement or replace all or part of the work you intended to use more than a reasonable portion of. This could also improve student's breadth of reading.
- Is the work available online, or could the Library purchase access to the work, which could then be provided to all students?
- Can students access the material themselves? Providing them with citation details and instructing them to access the material
- If the item is only available in hard copy (i.e.: print format), the Library can place restrictions on the circulation of the item to ensure that more students have access to it.
- You could contact the copyright owner and request specific permission to reproduce and communicate more than a reasonable portion.
For further help with copyright matters, please contact the University Copyright Coordinator.
Please view the Copyright Guide on the University Library website for more information about the above topic as well as other areas of Copyright.