Scholarship and Sharing Resources

Reproducing and Communicating Works Among Faculty and Staff

By following the amounts outlined in the Dalhousie Fair Dealing guidelines and guided by the fair dealing enumerated purposes identified in the Copyright Act it is possible to engage in the reproduction and communication of short excerpts of copyright protected works to each member of a limited size scholarly or research group for any one of the purposes of fair dealing under the Copyright Act. The purposes identified in the Act are: research, private study, news reporting, criticism, review, education, parody and satire.

A large and liberal interpretation is to be applied to the purposes themselves. Research or private study should no longer be thought of as taking place in solitude and isolation and that it can occur among small groups of limited size and nature.

To that end, sharing copies of short excerpts among members of a small group of Dalhousie faculty and staff or with a limited number of colleagues would also likely be fair dealing.

It's important to remember that the larger or wider the distribution, the less likely a dealing could be considered fair. A full fair dealing analysis should always be undertaken when such a sharing of copyright protected works is considered.