Course Reserves: Copyright Policies

Copyright Policies for Traditional Reserve:

In order to adhere to the copyright law the Reserve Desk follows the following guidelines:

• No more than six (6) copies of a copyrighted article may be kept at reserve.
• Copies of an article may not remain on reserve for more than four (4) consecutive quarters.
• All copied materials should contain a complete citation and notice of copyright.
• The number of copies of a monograph placed on reserve should not exceed 10% of the number of students in the class.

  *If you wish to keep copyrighted materials on reserve for more than four (4) consecutive quarters of continuous use, you must provide proof of permission from the copyright holder.

Copyright Policies for Electronic Reserve:

Wallace Library has structured Electronic Course Reserves to protect copyright holders from illegal use of their information and to protect RIT from copyright infringement liability lawsuits. We follow a conservative interpretation of draft guidelines of the Copyright Fair Use doctrine.

• Copyrighted items means text, images, software, etc. that:
  1. You hold the copyright to (everything in item is yours).
  2. Someone else holds the copyright to: e.g. full document, images in yourdocument, etc. not belonging to you;
  3. any internet-acquired materials.

We feel the best protection of copyrighted electronic material (including your own) is to limit access to matriculated students of your class.

Our procedures:

• Access is permitted through use of your assigned RIT DCE username and password.
• Catalog records are suppressed in each course to be viewable only through direct course access, not through indirect/random catalog searching. In order to find the records you must have exact course information.

  Note:You must submit written permission from copyright holders(e-mail isacceptable) for any items you do not want password protected. You may then choose to restrict access to RIT Internet users only. Otherwise access will be available to all worldwide Internet users.

• The copyright warning in the box below appears when patron's attempt to access course materials from the  Course Reserves page when searching by Professor name or Course name. User's are agreeing they will comply with this copyright warning by proceeding.This warning is intended to protect RIT from copyright infringement lawsuits from print and electronic publishers.

Some Course Reserves materials can be viewed electronically and ALL are protected by copyright. The copyright law of the United States (Title 17 U.S. code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Rochester Institute of Technology adheres to this statute by relying on the fair-use provisions of the copyright law and by obtaining the permission of the copyright holder where applicable.

One of the conditions of the copyright law as it applies to libraries specifies that a photocopy or reproduction is not to be used for "any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use", that user may be liable for copyright infringement.