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Copyright and Teaching

Determining Fair Use

Fair use (Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976) balances the rights of copyright holders with the needs of scholars to promote teaching, research and the free exchange of ideas. Fair use defines particular circumstances in which it is permissible to use copyrighted material free from permissions and royalties under specified conditions detailed in the four factors of fair use. All of these factors should be considered when evaluating each use of a copyrighted work. Fair use is not a means by which to circumvent copyright law, but a legal assertion of use which will need to be justified through the careful application of these conditions. These factors must be evaluated to determine whether most of them weigh in favor of or against fair use.

Visit Bentley Library's Fair Use Guide to learn more.

Electronic Resources

Consider using the wealth of online material available from the Bentley Library.​

Interlibrary Loan

The Bentley University Library provides interlibrary loan borrowing services to current students, staff and faculty of Bentley University to support the teaching, research and service missions of the University by providing access to material not present in the Library’s collections. Bentley University Library also provides interlibrary loan lending services to other libraries. Materials may be copied and distributed through interlibrary loan when they are:

  • in the public domain; or
  • used with permission from the copyright holder; or
  • used under the provisions of a contract or license agreement, noting that agreements may differ from, and often take precedence over, what is allowed under copyright law; or
  • used under the provisions of Library Copying, U.S. Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. Section 108 or, to the extent possible for University-related instructional or scholarly purposes, under Fair Use, 17 U.S.C. Section 107, as determined using a case-by-case four-factor analysis.

Visit Bentley Library's Interlibrary Loan page to learn more.

TEACH Act

What is the TEACH ACT?

The Technology Education and Copyright Harmonization Act is an expansion of U.S. Copyright Law that provides allowances for online/distance education programs. Key points include:

  • Allowing "reasonable or limited portions" of dramatic and audiovisual works to be posted on a web platform for instruction;
  • Promoting direct links to electronic resources, videos that include attribution, and streaming media;
  • Allowing scenes and/or portions of films to be uploaded for limited amount of time for instructional purposes.

Requirements of the TEACH Act

In order to take advantage of these benefits, instructors and institutions must meet certain policy requirements specified by the TEACH Act. Reasonable measures to assure that only enrolled students will have access to materials during the course of instruction must be in place before TEACH exemptions can be made. Consult this checklist for details. Below is a list of the primary requirements:

  • The teaching must occur at an accredited, nonprofit educational institution.
  • Only lawfully acquired copies may be used.
  • Use is limited to performances and displays. The TEACH Act does not apply to materials that are for students' independent use and retention, such as textbooks or other readings.
  • Use of materials must be within the context of "mediated instructional activities" analogous to the activities of a face-to-face class session.
  • The materials to be used should not include those primarily marketed for the purposes of distance education (i.e. an electronic textbook or a multimedia tutorial).
  • Materials should be made available only to those enrolled in the specific course and not available on the "open web." Password-protected course pages in a learning management system (LMS) like Brightspace are an example of limiting access to materials.
  • Reasonable efforts must be made to prevent students from distributing the material after viewing it.
  • If a digital version of the work is already available, then an analog copy cannot be converted for educational use.
  • Posted materials must be accompanied by a notice of copyright to inform students that materials must be used in accordance with copyright law and the institution's copyright policies.
  • The educational institution must have a policy on the use of copyrighted materials and provide informative resources for faculty advising them on their rights

The requirements for complying with the TEACH Act are numerous. As opportunities for applying the TEACH Act are limited in scope, keep in mind that you may also consider applying fair use when using copyrighted works in distance education settings.

Course Reserves

Bentley University Library supports instruction at Bentley University through the availability of course reserves and other collection access services. The primary function of these services is to ensure that students and faculty have timely and equitable access to course-related library resources.

Copyrighted materials made available via course reserve, either in print in the library or digitized on a learning management system, are for use in class, related course study outside of class, and course research. The use of copyrighted materials in all formats, including the creation, online delivery, and use of digital copies of copyrighted materials submitted for course reserve, must be in compliance with U.S. copyright law

For further guidance:

Traditional reserves are physical items placed on reserve in the library and made available for students to borrow. They can either be library-owned or instructor-provided with loan periods designated at the discretion of the instructor.

Physical reserve collections can include the following items:

  • Any circulating Bentley Library item (books, DVDs, etc.)
  • Personal copies of legally purchased items (books, DVDs, etc.)
  • Lecture notes, problems, solutions, etc.
  • Book chapters or excerpts not exceeding 10% of total work
  • Public domain works
  • Journal or newspaper articles

While virtually any item may be placed on reserve, there are a few exceptions. Due to copyright restrictions, the following items cannot be placed on reserve:

  • Reproductions of a complete book or of a substantial portion of a copyrighted work
  • Illegally “burned” copies of DVDs, CDs and other media
  • Consumable publications such as standardized tests, exercises, or workbooks
  • Certain non-circulating items from Bentley Library such as bound periodicals and reference material
  • Books obtained through Interlibrary Loan
  • Illegally digitized DVDs, CDs and other media

As higher education pedagogy has relied more on the use of online resources, the library serves this need by offering and facilitating electronic reserve services by digitizing print material and/or linking to electronic resources on learning management systems. 

Electronic reserves collections can include the following:

  • Licensed electronic content (e-journals, e-books, streaming media)
  • Digitized print material (fair use compliant)

Electronic Reserves collections cannot include the following:

  • A digitized copy of an entire book or portions exceeding fair use guidelines
  • Streaming media not licensed by the university
  • Illegally digitized DVDs, CDs and other media
  • Linked or digitized Harvard Business School cases

Most learning management systems employ a range of measures to ensure that access and control of its content remains restricted to only those who are designated users. Nevertheless, all content appearing on these platforms, whether digitized documents or streaming media, is still subject to copyright law and must undergo a thorough evaluation to ensure copyright compliance. This may include a number of actions, from conducting a fair use analysis to acquiring proper licensing for the use of copyrighted material. As educators, instructors should choose works or portions of works that serve a specific pedagogical purpose and should avoid the use of superfluous material when preparing course work.

A careful fair use analysis must be applied whenever any copyrighted content is made available electronically on a learning management system. The Association of Research Libraries, in its 2012 Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries, presents the following set of limitations to be considered when using copyrighted works on digital networks to further instructional purposes. These limitations are based upon an interpretation of fair use. They are not to be considered legally binding; rather, they should be used in informing responsible decisions regarding the digitizing and dissemination of copyrighted materials.

  • Closer scrutiny should be applied to uses of content created and marketed primarily for use in courses such as the one at issue (e.g., a textbook, workbook, or anthology designed for the course). Use of more than a brief excerpt from such works on digital networks is unlikely to be transformative and therefore unlikely to be a fair use.
  • The availability of materials should be coextensive with the duration of the course or other time-limited use (e.g., a research project) for which they have been made available at an instructor's discretion.
  • Only eligible students and other qualified persons (e.g., professors' graduate assistants) should have access to materials.
  • Materials should be made available only when and only to the extent that, there is a clear articulable nexus between the instructor's pedagogical purpose and the kind and amount of content involved.
  • When appropriate, the number of students with simultaneous access to online materials may be limited.
  • Students should also be given information about their rights and responsibilities regarding their own use of course materials.
  • Full attribution, in a form satisfactory to scholars in the field, should be provided for each work included or excerpted.