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It is very important that we are all aware of our rights and obligations when it comes to the use of copyright materials within the University. The guidelines listed below are by no means all inclusive, but are simply meant to assist you in your academic and administrative endeavours.  For more information on ACCESS Copyright you can view their web site.
What you CAN copy under the Nipissing University ACCESS License Agreement
* Please note, further restrictions may apply depending on your specific copying request
Classroom Handouts (not being sold to students)
- 10% of a published work (e.g. book, magazine, journal, newspaper, etc.).
- An entire chapter of a book if less than 20% of the book.
- An entire short story, poem, play, or article if from a collection of works.


Coursepack Creation (being sold to students, non-commercial)
- 15% of a published work (e.g. book, magazine, journal, newspaper, etc.).
- An entire chapter of a book if less than 20% of the book.
- An entire short story, poem, play, or article if from a collection of works.
- Only 5% of a 'textbook' is permitted.
- Only 50% of a course pack can be created from 'textbooks'.

What is a textbook?
Guidelines include: if the title is 'Introduction to ...' or 'Fundamentals of ...'; if the work has exercises, questions, cases, learning objectives.
What is NOT COVERED by our ACCESS License Agreement
* This does not necessarily mean that you are not able to copy these materials, but often you must seek permission outside of the ACCESS license agreement, which can have an associated fee regardless of your intended material use and may be a more lengthy process than working within the license agreement.
- Unpublished works (e.g. student work), original artistic works, instruction manuals, music in print form or sheet music, newsletters, letters to editors, workbooks (consumables), advertisements, most government documents.
- Items on our Excluded Publishers' List. (e.g. Garamond Press, Harvard Business School, Richard Ivey School of Business and as of April 2002, Princeton University Press, Simon and Schuster)
* A copy of our entire Excluded Publishers' List is available at FASS or Print Plus.
Copyright Permission Approval Processes For Various NOT COVERED Works
- Ontario government documents are generally pre-approved to be reproduced through the Queen's Printer if they are available on the web. If they are not available on the web, permission must be sought from a government representative. Other government documents are first researched to see if permission to reproduce is granted on the document itself or on the web. If no permission can be found, again, a government representative must be contacted for approval. The government permission request process can be quite lengthy, so it is important to plan ahead.
- Requests to copy web documents must be researched individually. Sometimes the copyright information is available right on the web site, but other times we need to contact the web site representative directly to get permission. Depending on the web site, response times vary, so again, it is important to plan ahead.
- Approval from excluded publishers are often sought by completing and faxing publisher specific application forms detailing the copying request.
- Public domain comes into effect 50 years after the death of the author and indicates that a work is not protected by copyright, but copyright does extend to each individual version or adaptation of a work.
- Fair dealing requires no approval and covers copying for the purpose of private study, research, criticism, review, or newspaper summary. Fair dealing is not defined in the current law and interpretation of the request may be needed prior to copying.
'Paper in, Paper out' Only
- We are NOT able to convert or provide any copyright protected materials in digital format as our license only covers 'paper in, paper out' at this time.
- Overhead transparencies are considered 'paper', whereas such things as web publishing and use of MS PowerPoint presentation are considered 'digital'.
To obtain more information on the non-profit organization ACCESS for more details on copyright guidelines, please pick up a brochure from either FASS or Print Plus.
Also, please feel free to contact Denise Gauthier (deniseg@nipissingu.ca, ext. 4351, A107) for further information on your specific copying requirements.