In order to encourage the distribution of information, the Copyright Act lists a number of exceptional situations in which the author’s copyright is restricted (the “statutory restrictions”).
The main restrictions from the point of view of higher education are set out in Sections 15 and 16 of the Copyright Act. In such cases, the material cannot be used without the consent of the author. In some cases, the user is required to make fair payment to the author, for example if a work is included in a reader. This is arranged for all higher education institutions in the “Reader Agreement”.
Scientific/scholarly material can be used without permission for:
- Performance/presentation for educational purposes if this serves a scientific/scholarly purpose;
- Quoting from a work;
- Use of a section for educational purposes;
- Copying for one’s own practice, study or use;
- Making a work available, via a closed network, that forms part of the collections of publicly accessible libraries;
- Duplicating a work for the sole purpose of restoring the copy of the work that an institution holds, ensuring that it remains available if its technology becomes obsolete, or preserving the work for the institution if it is likely to deteriorate.