Copyright Guide for Faculty

Fair Dealing is an exception in the Copyright Act (section 29) that allows limited copying for the purpose of research, private study, review, criticism, review, news reporting, parody, satire, or education.

As a non-profit educational institution, JIBC faculty and staff may copy or communicate a short excerpt from a copyright-protected work to students enrolled in a class or course:

• as a class handout
• as a posting to a course management system that is password protected or otherwise restricted to JIBC students

To qualify for fair dealing, two tests must be passed.

1. First, the "dealing" must be for a purpose stated in the Copyright Act: research, private study, criticism, review, news reporting, education, satire or parody.
2. The second test is that the dealing must be "fair". In landmark decisions in 2004 and in 2012, the Supreme Court of Canada provided guidance as to what this test means in educational institutions. This test is often referred to as the Six Factors Analysis.

These criteria should be applied to help determine whether a use of (or dealing with) a work is fair.

A "short excerpt" refers to:

• up to 10% of a copyright-protected work

OR

• 1 chapter from a book
• 1 article from a journal or magazine
• 1 article or page from a newspaper
• 1 entry from an encyclopedia, dictionary, annotated bibliography, or similar reference work
• 1 poem or musical score from a work containing other poems or musical scores
• an entire artistic work from a work containing other artistic works

... whichever is greater.

You must have legal access to the work for fair dealing to apply. Works from a licensed source (such as a library database) may not qualify for fair dealing.