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Copyright for Educators: Library provided E-Resources

This guide provides information about copyright in the classroom. This guide is not a substitute for legal advice.

Disclaimer

Please note: This guide does not provide legal advice. It is intended to give guidance about acceptable use of copyright protected materials.

Use of E-Resources

The King's University licenses a large number of electronic resources including research databases, e-journals, and e-books. Access to these resources is governed by license agreements with resource providers. The agreements specify the groups of individuals who can access the electronic resources (generally limited to employees and current students) and they place restrictions on the uses that can be made of the resources.

Linking to Articles in Research Databases

Best practice is share resources through a link rather the posting a PDF copy. 

What Am I Not Allowed To Do With Electronic Resources

You may not:

  1. Use any part of the electronic resource for a commercial purpose.
  2. Use software such as webcrawlers or other automated means to systematically make copies of extracts of the electronic resource for any purpose.
  3. Post or distribute any part of the electronic resource on unsecured electronic networks, such as personal websites, electronic bulletin boards, news groups and web sites. 
    • Note: posting to e-reserves or to a learning management system may be allowed by the license. Check specific license permissions for further information.
  4. Obscure or alter any copyright or other notices appearing in the electronic resource
  5. Publish, distribute or make available any portion of the electronic resource except as detailed in the specific license permissions or as permitted by the Fair Dealing provisions of the Canadian Copyright Act.

Permitted Uses for a Research Database or E-Book Collection

To discover the permitted uses of an entire research database or e-book collection, search for the title of the database here.

For example:

  • search for Science Direct and click on "permitted uses for this database"  to see the conditions of use for articles found through Science Direct
  • search for Ebook Central and click on "permitted uses for this database" to see the permitted uses for one of our e-book collections

Note: if the article is not full text in the database you searched but you link out through the 'Linked Full Text' icon or through 'Where Can I Get This?' to the full text, that article is found in a different resource and is thus subject to a different license that may have different permitted uses.

Acknowledgements

Content from this guide adapted from KPU Copyright Guide under creative commons license. 

Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 4.0.