Extracts from a literary or dramatic work
e.g. a book, play, novel, anthology, brochure, journal, magazine, newspaper etcThe "fair dealing" provisions of the Copyright Act provide that students or staff don't need to get the permission of the copyright owner to copy literary or dramatic works provided their copying is for the purposes of "research or study" or "criticism or review".
Any copying you do under these provisions must be considered to be "fair". You should not normally exceed the following limits:
- For periodicals/journals/newspapers: one article in an issue (you can copy more than one if the articles relate to the same subject);
- For books: 10% of the pages or one chapter (whichever is greater)
- For material in a digital format, not covered by a licence or other "contractual agreement", you can copy one chapter (if the work is in chapters) or 10% of the number of words (if it is not divided into chapters). For digital works covered by licence or contractual agreement, you must abide by the terms of the licence/contractual agreement. (See sections below on Material covered by contractual agreements, Library e-books, e-journals and databases and Material on the Internet)
Normally you should only make a single copy, for your own individual use. You should only make multiple copies if your purpose is "criticism or review" - e.g. if you are making a tutorial presentation which involves commenting on the work and you need to provide all the students in the tutorial with a copy of an extract from it.
