Including Copyrighted Content in Moodle

Copyright Considerations

Section 30.04 of the Copyright Act allows instructors to "reproduce, communicate and perform" publicly available internet material for educational purposes if the following conditions are met:

• The content has been legitimately posted on the Internet by the copyright holder (or with the copyright holder's permission);
  • Do not post links to pirated textbooks or articles from file-sharing sites, such as Sci-Hub, ResearchGate and Library Genesis
• Attribution is given (i.e. the creator of the content is identified);
• The source of the content is provided (i.e. the website name and URL are identified)
• The content does not contain a notice that prohibits reproduction for educational purposes  (A copyright symbol alone is not enough to void this exception.)

Some freely available content on the internet may be subject to a Creative Commons license that allows the content to be used in creative ways beyond merely copying and sharing that may be of interest to some instructors.  Read the terms of such licenses carefully, as different Creative Commons licenses allow different types of uses.

Technical Considerations

Because space on the Moodle server is limited, instructors should post links to publicly available content on the Internet in Moodle rather than posting downloaded files.  An additional advantage of linking is that the requirements for attribution and source are automatically included.