Copyright Guidelines for Materials Used in BCTF Workshops and Presentations Prepared by Emily O’Neill
BCTF Information Services Introduction In developing workshops and presentations for teachers, it is common practice to include materials that are created by others and are therefore protected by copyright legislation. Our objective in preparing copyright guidelines is to alert BCTF staff and members to copyright issues, and to illustrate the steps required in obtaining clearance to use or reproduce materials. When is copyright permission necessary? Unless specified, we should assume that any item is copyrighted, even if the copyright symbol is not used. Permission to use copyrighted material is required for anything that a BCTF staff member did not produce and that is longer than a short excerpt, regardless of the format of intended use (photocopies, reprints, PowerPoint slides, etc.). This includes entire articles, chapters of books, papers (or parts thereof), letters to the editor, cartoons, and photos or graphics that accompany an article. Fair dealing is a provision in the Canadian Copyright Act that allows for some exceptions in the copying and use of copyrighted material. In other words, fair dealing places limits on the rights that copyright holders have. Unfortunately, fair dealing is not clearly defined in the Act, and determining whether a particular use falls under this provision can be very tricky. According to the law, fair dealing allows for the use of copyrighted materials for the purposes of: • Research or private study • Criticism or review • News reporting • Parody or satire, or • Education, as long as proper attribution is given to the copyright holder. This does not mean, however, that you can use the material in any way that you like, even for these exceptions. In her book, Canadian Copyright Law, noted copyright expert Lesley Ellen Harris suggests three factors to consider when trying to determine whether a particular use of copyright-protected material constitutes fair dealing: 1. “First, consider whether a substantial part of a work is being copied.”
Facilitators’ Institute Training 2022
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