This guide is designed to provide basic, general information about copyright, and does not constitute legal advice. The links to third party sites in this guide are provided for your convenience. Mt. San Antonio College does not take responsibility for the content of these other sites.
This guide is adapted from the University of Florida's Copyright LibGuide (CC-BY-NC-SA 3.0).
This work is licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0.
In general, you have leeway under U.S. Copyright Law to make resources available to support student learning and equitable access. A few tips:
Our Course Reserves team can support you in getting course materials (including readings and videos), purchasing and licensing materials where necessary, and reviewing relevant copyright issues. Your Mt. SAC Library Liaisons can also help identify relevant materials available in the Libraries' collections or freely online without risk of copyright infringement. If you need to upload or link to materials for students to access, these are great places to start.
The Libraries collections include millions of books, articles, streaming videos, and other materials to support your teaching without copyright concerns. You can also take advantage of videos, images, and other content made available online under Creative Commons licenses, which allow for reuse with attribution.
Fair use becomes even more critical in an online or hybrid learning context where other exemptions in U.S. Copyright Law are more constrained. Fair use is an explicit part of copyright law that allows all of us to repurpose portions of copyright-protected works in contexts such as education and scholarship. Questions to ask as you upload materials for your students or create online lectures include:
There are a few ways to share materials while easily lowering your risk of copyright infringement:
Course reserves are course materials that an instructor has made available in the library for students to use. They include textbooks, books, DVDs, articles, etc.
Students may borrow course reserves items with their Mt. SAC student ID for two hours at a time, LIBRARY USE only.
Mt. SAC Library is open 7 days a week during Fall & Spring Semester.
Course Reserves Form
Mt. SAC Library Course Reserves FAQs for Students
Contact: Kolap Samel; ksamel@mtsac.edu
Mt. SAC Library offers a wide array of resources through our subscription services. These resources can be used as zero-cost alternative to traditional course textbooks.
