The use of copyright-protected materials at Waterloo is covered by the Canadian Copyright Act and by various agreements and licences entered into by the University with copyright owners and representative organizations. The Copyright Act is the legislation in Canada that sets out what users can and cannott do with other people’s copyright-protected materials. In addition to this, the University has special agreements with copyright owners (such as subscriptions to electronic journals) that give users additional rights to certain content.
In order to determine whether what you want to do is permissible, you need to check that you comply with any agreements or licences covering the work in question and/or the Copyright Act. You should ask yourself:
- Is the work in question covered by an agreement or a licence that the University library has with publishers or a public licence such as a Creative Commons licence? If so, is what I want to do permissible under those agreements or licences?
- If not, is what I want to do covered by the Copyright Act, either under the educational exceptions or under the fair dealing exception?
If you’re not covered by any agreement or licence or by an exception under the Act, you’ll need to get permission for what you want to do from the copyright owner.
