The Copyright Act includes several exceptions that allow users to copy a work (or a portion of a work) without the need to obtain permission or pay royalties. These exceptions are particularly useful for instructors who want to share portions of copyrighted works that are only available in print, as they do not typically include the sorts of copying options that copyrighted content in licensed databases or websites have.
An insubstantial portion of a copyrighted work -- such as a few sentences -- can be copied for any purpose.
A substantial portion of a copyrighted work -- such as one journal article, a single chapter from a book, a single short story or a single poem -- can generally be copied and shared with students under the fair dealing provisions in section 29 of the Copyright Act if. The amount copied is an important consideration, but there are other factors that should be considered when determining whether copying part (or all) of a particular copyrighted work is "fair":
Tracking down the rightsholder, negotiating acceptable terms, and obtaining written permission to copy all or large portions of a copyrighted work can be time-consuming, complex and expensive. Due to this unpredictability, instructors who want to reproduce portions of a copyrighted work that would exceed fair dealing and distribute or sell it to their students are strongly urged to adopt an alternate text or reading. Contact the Campus Copyright Officer for more information.
Scanned portions of print resources that are copyright compliant and display the appropriate attribution, source and copyright statements may be posted as PDFs (or as other files, as the case may be) in Moodle. Note that if the content is commercially available for a reasonable price in an ebook format, CUE Library will consider licensing the ebook, obviating the need for an instructor to scan and post a file.