Copyright confusion

It fills coursepacks, is printed on handouts and makes up many documents posted online — copyrighted material within the university is something most students and professors come across every day in their academic lives.

But what constitutes “fair use” of these materials, and what does not? And who gets to decide?

Representatives from MSU’s faculty, students and legal counsel have formed a copyright policy task force in an effort to create a new, “robust” copyright policy at MSU that would address issues with third-party copyrighted material.

Gillian Bice, chairwoman for University Committee on Curriculum and a member of the copyright task force, said the current legal climate makes developing a new policy important, since publishing companies are starting to crack down on copyright infringement in higher education.

“The goal is to have a policy that helps MSU faculty develop and utilize educational tools, and at the same time be comfortable that the university has their back if they follow their guidelines,” Bice said.

Sean Reeder, associate director of MSU Technologies, said copyrighted work refers to the intellectual property, or ownership, that researchers, developers or authors have of their works.

Royalties refer to the money third-party users of material must pay a licenser for their use of the copyrighted material, he said.

Lynne Woods, course materials program manager for MSU Printing Services, said she uses a four-factor analysis to determine the concept of fair use: purpose of use of the material, nature of the material, how much material will be used and how the use will affect the market for the work.

David Gift, vice provost for Libraries, Computing & Technology, said fair use makes it acceptable to use some teaching materials in a classroom setting without seeking copyright licenses. Posting copyrighted works to ANGEL might fall under the fair use concept if the material only is accessible to students enrolled in the course, for example.

Creative works often are weighted more toward fair use, but if distributing the material has a strong effect on the market, users likely will have to pay royalties, Woods said.

Gift said there is some difference between the use of copyrighted materials posted online and those used in paper coursepacks.

“On one hand, there is no difference — anything using copyrighted materials should be ideally getting copyright clearance for them,” Gift said. “But if a class is small enough, that’s where we can rely on the concept of fair use.”

MSU Libraries also makes a number of journals and articles available online to current MSU faculty and students through an online license, which may require an annual or one-time subscription fee, Gift said.

“The presumption is that faculty and students are using the material only for personal use,” he said. “If they intend to replicate or copy it, they should check to see whether it fits in fair use.”

But at times, the distinction between fair use and infringement is unclear.

Cecilia Malilwe, permissions coordinator in MSU Libraries’ Digital and Multimedia Center, said a fair-use situation is typically for educational purposes and must be used in some kind of instruction setting where professors can monitor its use.

In this setting, documents posted on ANGEL would be included, since it is password protected. But if instructors are copying the heart of the work, which might discourage students from buying it, the situation might lean more toward copyright infringement, Malilwe said.

Within her position with MSU Printing Services, Woods often serves as a liaison working with professors, publishers and copyright holders on many of the coursepacks used throughout the university.

According to MSU Printing Services, students pay rights holders about 10 cents in royalties for each copyrighted page in a coursepack.

Woods said the copyright process involves checking the materials professors use with their copyright software and working with copyright clearance centers and other rights holders.

About 60 percent of requests receive instant rights through the electronic copyright clearance center that MSU Printing Services uses, Woods said.

Since the copyright laws are often unclear, faculty might desire the re-evaluation of the copyright policy, Gift said.

“Copyright can be very simple, and sometimes it can be very, very complicated,” he said. “We try to provide resources to help people figure out their situation, and get proper clearance.”

Published on Monday, March 24, 2008