Copyright and CLEW

Please Note: The University of Windsor copyright webpages are in the process of being revised and updated to reflect the recent Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) copyright decisions and provisions of Bill C-11, The Copyright Modernization Act that were brought into force in November 2012. When updates are complete, this note will disappear. If clarification is needed, please email questions to copyright@uwindsor.ca.

Students using CLEW, please read the descriptions below for further clarification about Copyright Status selections. If you are using Drop Box for uploading Assignments and other files for your instructor, this CLEW Wiki Getting Started article will help to demonstrate the most common choice you might need.

The following options are available in CLEW to identify the status for uploaded materials.

Material is in the public domain

Works in the public domain are those for which the copyright protection has expired. Generally, the term of copyright protection in Canada is the life of the author plus 50 years. Works in the public domain can be used by anyone without fear of copyright infringement. Well established projects that with digitized public domain texts include the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg. For assistance in determining whether a work is in the Public Domain, use the Canadian Public Domain Flowchart.

I hold copyright

Use this selection in the case where you are the sole copyright holder - material you have written yourself, such as a paper, essay or powerpoint presentation.

I have obtained permission to use this material

If you are not the owner of copyright or the author of the work, then you should take steps to get permission from the copyright holder to copy and post the material in CLEW (see Leddy Library Copyright Clearance Service).

Remember, copyright also exists on the Web, therefore permission is required to copy materials from the web, although linking from CLEW to a website can be done without permission. It's strongly recommended that you link to a homepage rather than the sub-page of a website, as the legality of "deep linking" is still in question in Canada.

Sometimes, especially in relation to online material, the website itself will provide the terms and conditions of use and will give blanket permission to copy material from the site if used for educational purposes. This is also a form of license and you should check the copyright permission link on the website itself.

Material is available as Open Access

An increasing amount of material is being made available in Open Access publications online which, like Creative Commons, promotes the free distribution and use of content with appropriate attribution. There are several online starting points to find open access content, including the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and the Directory of Open Access Repositories (OpenDOAR).
 

Material is licensed by the University of Windsor library

Leddy Library has licensed thousands of e-journals and e-books for campus use. In most cases the licenses allow for use of this content in CLEW – either as uploads or through durable URL links to content in the database. To determine what use can be made of e-content see the Leddy Library License Information webpage.

Material falls under a Creative Commons license

If the work you want to copy is issued under a Creative Commons license, you should check the terms of this license to satisfy yourself that the licensor has all the necessary rights to make the work available under a Creative Commons license. Be aware that if they do not, you could be liable for copyright infringement based on your use of the work. For further information, see the Creative Commons website.

Material is subject to fair dealing exception

The fair dealing exception in the Copyright Act allows for the copying of protected materials without permission from the copyright holder.  To make copies of protected materials under this exception University of Windsor faculty and staff are obliged to adhere to the guidelines of the University of Windsor Fair Dealing Policy, a summary of which is available as Fair Dealing Copying Guidelines for Faculty & Staff.

Questions can be sent to: copyright@uwindsor.ca