Digital FAQs for Post Secondary Licensees
Instead of giving paper photocopies of an article to my students, may I post it electronically on my course website?
Your institution's licence with Access Copyright does not authorize any digital use of material (e.g. posting to an intranet, emailing, or scanning). You may purchase a digital pay-per-use (transactional) licence from Access Copyright which will authorize this use. However, digital use of this material may be subject to additional terms and royalty payments. Alternatively, you may contact the copyright owner directly to ask for permission.
May I provide my students with paper copies of material found on digital sources (e.g. subscriptions or the Internet)?
You must check the terms of use found on the website or subscription agreement. These terms may permit or prohibit the use you want to make. If the source prohibits the use, contact the webmaster or publisher for permission. Access Copyright may be able to assist you in obtaining this permission through our pay-per-use (transactional) licensing service.
If the terms of use of the digital source permit you to print one copy, your Access Copyright licence may also step in to permit you to make multiple copies for your class or include it in a coursepack. In this situation, you must determine if:
- the material you wish to use also exists in print form (e.g. an article from the Toronto Star or an academic journal such as Nature) and
- the print source would be covered by your Access Copyright licence.
If the answer to both questions is yes, then the paper copy you are permitted to make from the digital source is considered a legally obtained paper copy under your institution's licence with Access Copyright. It may therefore be copied in accordance with the terms and conditions of your licence.
May I use the scanning element of the photocopier to make a paper photocopy of a paper source?
Under your institution's licence, you are permitted to scan only if it is with the intent of making a paper photocopy. If the copier temporarily holds a digital copy in cache in order to copy, this is allowed. However, the licence does not allow you to store the digital copy, email the scanned copy to a print operator or to a Docutech account, or store the copy on a digital system.
May we supply instructors with the PDF files of their coursepacks for their own use?
Under your institution's licence, you are not permitted to transmit an electronic file from a coursepack for viewing or posting. The licence does permit you to create an electronic file from a coursepack, but only for the purpose of making paper photocopies.
Is there a comprehensive digital licence for the education sector?
Currently Access Copyright can only provide comprehensive print-to-print licences to the education sector. We do have a pay-per-use (transactional) digital license available for educational digital uses of material. If you need to copy from digital to print, print to digital, or digital to digital, you may request a digital pay-per-use licence by sending us an email. Digital royalties are set by individual publishers and copyright owners and vary according to the works used.