eReserve copyright guidelines

For more information:

The Fair Use & Copyright guide is a user-friendly web resource designed to support the CUNY community in making independent, informed decisions about copyright compliance and educational fair use.

Code of Best Practices for Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries.

  1. All materials placed on Electronic Reserve will be at the initiative of individual faculty solely for the non-commercial, educational use of their students.
  2. Access to readings is restricted to students taking the class, by the use of passwords.
  3. There is no charge for accessing the materials. If students print materials from the computers in the college, they will be charged at the usual rate.
  4. The following copyright notice appears before each course page:

    "Please be advised that to use electronic material in ERes, you must agree to the following by clicking the Accept button: The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted materials. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement."

  5. Access to the files will be removed at the end of the semester, unless there are no copyright restrictions and the material will be needed again the following semester.
  6. As with conventional reserves, the library will pay any "reasonable" fees requested by the copyright owner. While waiting for permission from the copyright owner, the Reserve staff will place the materials on the electronic reserve system. All letters of permission received will be kept on file. If permission is denied, or if excessive fees are demanded by the copyright holder, the faculty member will be informed and the materials will be removed from Electronic Reserve.
  7. The following types of material can be placed on electronic reserve for one semester without requiring permission from the copyright owner:
    • Any material in the public domain, i.e. material without copyright protection, or for which the period of protection is over.
    • A reasonable amount of pages from a journal issue, e.g. one article.
    • A reasonable amount of pages from a book. See the Fair Use & Copyright guide for more information.

    NOTE: Journal articles that are available in many of the databases to which the library subscribes are not subject to these restrictions, and may be used without these time and quantity restrictions (unless the terms of our license agreement with the database vendor forbids such use). Journals available in our electronic databases can be found via Journal search.

  8. If the article is from a journal to which we have an electronic subscription, rather than scanning, we will link into that database from the course page in Electronic Reserve.

Fair Use & Copyright Guidelines for CUNY libraries