Hampshire College

Copyright Law

The policy governing electronic as well as paper reserves is based on the provisions of fair use of the United States Copyright Act of 1976. Section 107 of the Copyright Act expressly states that "such use by reproduction in copies...for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include--

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."

Purpose and Access

The purpose of the course reserves component of the Hampshire College website is to provide access to supplementary course materials in support of the college's academic mission. Current access to the material is limited by password to students and faculty of each course. The database is not browseable, nor is it available to web search engines.

A copyright warning will be posted on each course website on the entry screen to the reserves component. The text is consistent with the notice described in section 108 of the Copyright Act: "NOTICE: The copyright law of the United States (Title 17 U.S. Code) governs the making of photocopies of copyrighted materials. The person using this system is liable for any infringement."

Authorized users may view, download, or print copies from the system using Adobe Acrobat Reader. Users may make one copy for private study, personal reading, research, scholarship or education. No copyrighted material from a college course website may be re-posted on any internet site.

Obtaining electronic copies of scholarly material

If the desired item is available in accessible electronic form already, either from a contractual service such as JSTOR that permits such use or elsewhere (provided that the library has no reason to believe that the existing copy is in violation of copyright), a link will be made from the course website to the electronic copy. If no persistent URL is available, a copy may be downloaded for the course website.

If the material is not available in electronic form, single copies of articles or chapters of books supplied by the faculty member will be scanned and made accessible to the students of the course.

Complete or longer works, such as books, will not be scanned for the reserve system if an existing printed copy can be purchased for regular reserve. If no copy is available for purchase at a reasonable cost, a scanned copy may be made.

The library will not place materials on electronic reserve if it judges that the nature, scope or extent of the material is beyond the reasonable limits of fair use.

Materials will be removed from access on the system within a reasonable time after the conclusion of the course.

Monitoring Future Developments

Electronic copying and scanning of copyright-protected works for library reserve systems and distance learning are uninterpreted areas of the law which may be addressed by the Supreme Court or by Congress in future revisions of the copyright law. The library will monitor developments concerning fair use to ensure that library services remain in compliance with U.S. copyright law.

5/23/02
SAD