Fair Dealing Guidelines
The fair dealing provision in the Copyright Act permits use of a copyright-protected work without permission from the copyright owner or the payment of copyright royalties. To qualify for fair dealing, two tests must be passed.
First, the “dealing” must be for a purpose stated in the Copyright Act: research, private study, criticism, review, news reporting, education, satire, and parody. Educational use of a copyright-protected work passes the first test.
The second test is that the dealing must be “fair.” In landmark decisions in 2004 and in 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada provided guidance as to what this test means in schools and post-secondary educational institutions.
These guidelines apply fair dealing in non-profit K–12 schools and postsecondary educational institutions and provide reasonable safeguards for the owners of copyright-protected works in accordance with the Copyright Act and the Supreme Court decisions.
Guidelines
The Supreme Court of Canada has established a two step test for evaluating copying under the fair dealing provision.
STEP 1 ~ Are you copying for one of the following purposes?
2 ~ Check to see if your copying is fair.
Fairness is measured by the following criteria.
Fail the fair dealing test?
Check to see if any of the following conditions apply.
When in doubt, consult your Campus Librarian or the Copyright Office.
Copying, scanning, or printing pages from products sold as a workbook intended for one-time use is not allowed.
Workbooks and exercise books are intended for one-time use, with students' answers written directly on the book's pages. Any copying from materials intended for one-time use exposes the person making the copy, the instructor, and the College to liability for copyright infringement.
This prohibition does not apply to reproducibles or materials with a Creative Commons (CC) license.
A reproducible is not intended for one-time use, but is sold or provided with the rights holder’s authorization to reproduce it for educational use.
Teaching and learning resources with Creative Commons (CC) copyright licenses like Open Educational Resource (OER) can be freely shared, copied, reused, and in most cases revised and adapted.
For more information on OERS go to the NSCC Guide on Open Educational Resources (OERs).
Remember to give credit and cite the original source on all handouts.
You may provide handouts of a short excerpt of a work to:
* Students in a class or course.
* A learning management system that is password-protected, restricted to NSCC students, faculty and staff.
* A College network that is password-protected, restricted to NSCC students, faculty and staff.
The amount of content copied must be fair. NSCC faculty, staff and students should follow the NSCC Fair Dealing Guidelines on copying or communicating copyrighted works.
Generally, under fair dealing you may copy:
* up to 10% of a work or
* one chapter/article from a work.
Need to copy more than NSCC Fair Dealing Guidelines recommend?
Please consult with your Campus Librarian for assistance.
You may include an artistic work (including a painting, print, photograph, diagram, drawing, map, chart and plan) as a class handout or as a posting to a learning or course management system if it has a creative commons license or is part of a larger work and meets the fair dealing test. NSCC faculty are reminded to:
Instructors may play music or other sound recordings in the classroom if:
This provision may not apply to a performance at an off-campus venue that is not at an educational institution.
A SOCAN license for music performance may be obtained for events that do not meet this criteria.
Check with SOCAN or your Campus Library, for more information.
Section 29.5 in the Copyright Act allows teachers and students to show films and documentaries on campus for educational or training purposes if the following conditions are met:
For social, fundraiser, or non-educational events, a public performance rights licence is required to show films. Audio Cine Films and Criterion Pictures provide various licencing options such as one-time screening, annual performance, etc. Please contact your Campus Library if you would like more information.
NSCC has licensed access to high quality streaming video collections. Faculty, staff and students can access these collections through the library website.
The Copyright Act includes an exception for tests or examinations. You can:
You can copy content from websites for an educational purpose if your copying meets the following conditions:
Important Note: This exception does not apply if the educational institution or person acting in their educational role knows or should have known that the work or other subject-matter was made available through the Internet without the consent of the copyright owner.
The Copyright Act of Canada defines a technological protection measure (commonly referred tp as a digital lock) as:
any effective technology, device or component that, in the ordinary course of its operation,
(a) controls access to a work, to a performer’s performance fixed in a sound recording or to a sound recording and whose use is authorized by the copyright owner; or
(b) restricts the doing — with respect to a work, to a performer’s performance fixed in a sound recording or to a sound recording — of any act referred to in section 3, 15 or 18 and any act for which remuneration is payable under section 19.
Some alternative options for providing course materials include:
