Guidelines for Classroom Copying

Some of the most important effects of the Copyright Law and the Guidelines for classroom copying are listed below.

A Teacher May NOT:

• Make multiple copies of a work for classroom use if it has already been copied for another class in the same institution.
• Make multiple copies of a short poem, article, story, or essay from the same author more than once in a class term or make multiple copies from the same collective work or periodical issue more than three times a term.
• Make multiple copies of works more than nine times in the same class term.
• Make multiple copies long in advance of the actual use of those copies.
• Make multiple copies at the suggestion or direction of another individual.
• Make multiple copies for distribution that do not contain (individually) a notice of copyright.
• Make copy or copies that might imply or attribute an ownership position to the library.
• Make copies for private reserve files, departmental reserve collections, or general library units if the cumulative effect exceeds the Guidelines in the same class term.
• Make a single copy or multiple copies of any item for use from term to term.
• Make a copy of works to take the place of an anthology.
• Make a copy (copies) for charge in excess of costs.
• Direct students to make photocopies from either an original item or a photocopy of that item for any course.
• Make a copy of "consumable" materials, such as workbooks.

A Teacher MAY:

• Make a single copy for use in scholarly research, or in teaching, or in preparation for teaching a class of the following:

  • A chapter from a book
    
  • An article from a periodical or newspaper
    
  • A short story, short essay, or short poem, whether or not from a collected work
    
  • A chart, graph, diagram, drawing, cartoon or picturefrom a book, periodical or newspaper

• Make multiple copies for classroom use only and not to exceed one per student in a class of the following:

  • A complete poem, if it is less than 250 words and printed on not more than two pages
  • An excerpt from a longer poem, if it is less than 250 words
  • A complete article, story, or essay, if it is less than 250 words
  • An excerpt from a prose work, if it is less than 1000 words or 10 percent of the work, whichever is less
  • One chart, graph, diagram, drawing, cartoon, or picture per book or periodical

• Inform (but not request) students that they individually have the right to make photocopies of instructional materials for their individual use.

  Taken from CRL News, January 1978, p.5.