Faculty: Copyright in the Classroom
As of September 1, 2012, Centennial College has adopted a fair dealing policy.
This is in line with the Canadian Copyright Act and Supreme Court rulings, and permits the use of copyright-protected work for educational purposes if the material being used meets the six-factor fairness test as outlined in the landmark CCH Canadian Ltd. v. Law Society of Upper Canada decision.
Copying or communicating short excerpts from a copyright-protected work under this fair dealing policy for the purpose of news reporting, criticism or review should mention the source and, if given in the source, the name of the author or creator of the work.
For more information about copyright visit the Library’s Copyright Guide.
What is permitted under Fair Dealing?
Under fair dealing, you may copy short excerpts of a copyright protected work to each student enrolled in a class or course as:
- A class handout
- A posting to a learning or course management system that is password protected or otherwise restricted to students of a school or post-secondary educational institution
- Part of a course pack
A short excerpt includes:
- Up to 10% of a copyright-protected work (including a literary work, musical score, sound recording, and an audiovisual work)
- One chapter from a book
- A single article from a periodical
- An entire artistic work (including a painting, print, photograph, diagram, drawing, map, chart, and plan) from a copyright-protected work containing other artistic works
- An entire newspaper article or page
- An entire single poem or musical score from a copyright-protected work containing other poems or musical scores
- An entire entry from an encyclopedia, annotated bibliography, dictionary or similar reference work
Fair dealing should not be the only means of providing course material. Other options include library materials and e-resources such as databases, course textbooks, Open Access and Open Educational Resources.
If you have any questions about whether your copying is permitted under fair dealing, please contact the Copyright Services team.