A number of guidelines are presented below on the correct procedures with regard to copyright relating to learning tools. The guidelines apply to printed and digital readers (specially compiled collections of reading material relating to the course) as well as material that is included in the electronic learning environment.
Use of copyright-protected work by others
Under the Copyright Act, the use of a short section of work protected by copyright in teaching materials is permitted without the need to request permission in advance. You must however register that use with the copyright owner, and you will be required to pay a fair fee. For longer sections, permission must be sought. In both cases, it goes without saying that you must clearly state the source.
Wageningen UR has entered into a reader agreement with the Nederlands Uitgeversverbond (Dutch Publishers Association) and Stichting PRO (Foundation for publication and reproduction rights). This agreement indicates exactly how much of a text may be used without permission, what it costs and how that use must be reported. Stichting PRO has been appointed as the central reporting and payment address in this regard.
Besides the reader agreement, agreements have also been made directly with publishers. These agreements overrule the Copyright Act and thus also the reader agreement.
No permission needs to be sought for "Open Access" publications either, and no fee needs to be paid. These publications often have a so-called Creative Commons licence, in which the author provides guidelines for the use of the material. For example:
- © 2011 The authors. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
One alternative to including a publication in teaching material in full is to provide a reference to the publication, whether in print or on the internet. This is always permitted, except when referring to an illegal copy, and avoids extra hassle (and costs).
Reader agreement
The reader agreement makes a distinction between short sections of text/short works (website in Dutch) and longer sections or works.
Wageningen University pays Stichting PRO an annual compensation fee for the use of short works or short sections of text from Dutch and international works in printed or digital readers and in the electronic learning environment. It is not necessary to report every use of short sections of text individually, but PRO does want to receive a reference copy of every reader in which material has been used under the compensation fee scheme, with a statement regarding the number of copies. In the case of publication via BlackBoard or other electronic learning environments, nothing needs to be sent. Members of teaching staff who compile readers using short sections of copyrighted text must take care of this themselves, as this is not centrally regulated.
This applies only to readers containing information covered by the compensation fee scheme. This does not apply to readers consisting exclusively of publications for which the rights have already been arranged through licences issued by the publishers (see Agreements with publishers) and/or open-access publications.
There are tools available to count the number of words in digital documents. In Word, this can be done using Review - Word Count, and you can upload a PDF document to this website to find out the number of words.
For longer works, for which no permission has been granted through licence agreements with publishers, you must request permission before using them. You can request permission directly from the publisher or arrange this through Stichting PRO. PRO has an online application form that can be used to request permission. Stichting PRO wants to receive a reference copy of every reader including longer works or longer sections of works, with a statement regarding the number of copies and proof of permission having been granted. You must arrange this yourself as this is not centrally regulated. In the case of publication via BlackBoard or other electronic learning environments, you do not need to send anything. In the case of the inclusion of longer works or longer sections of works, you will receive an invoice on the basis of the applicable rates for inclusion (rates document in Dutch).
Agreements with publishers
The Wageningen UR Library has entered into a large number of agreements with publishers who regulate access to the electronic versions of journals and books. A number of these contracts specify that articles or chapters may be included in printed or digital readers and/or on an internal network for the purposes of education. No separate permission therefore needs to be sought and no fee needs to be paid. Naturally, this is always conditional on quoting the source. It is recommended that the following statement be published alongside the document: Permission for use granted by publisher.
The tables presented below (Electronic journals and E-books) show what is permitted per publisher. The column "Duration and licence" contains links to the passages from the contracts regarding re-use in education.
For further information, please contact Aquila Weijers at Wageningen UR Library, tel. +31 (0)317 4 84541.
Electronic journals
| Publisher | Explicit permission for | Duration and licence | Remarks | Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| printed reader | digital reader | ||||
| ACM Digital Library | Yes | Yes | 2011- | Applies to free readers only? | March 2011 |
| ACS - American Chemical Society (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2008-2012 | Sept 2009 | |
| AGU | Yes | Forbidden | 2002- | Sept 2009 | |
| AIP - American Institute of Physics | No | No | 2003- | Sept 2009 | |
| AMA - American Medical Association | Yes | Yes | 2004- | Electronic copies must be deleted at the end of the academic year | Sept 2009 |
| AMS - American Meteorological Society | No | No | 1999- | Sept 2009 | |
| Amsterdam University Press (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2008-2010; 2011-2013 | March 2011 | |
| American Society of Animal Science | Yes | Yes | 2001- | Sept 2009 | |
| American Society of Limnology and Oceanography | No | No | 2003- | Sept 2009 | |
| American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) | No | No | 2004- | Sept 2009 | |
| Annual Reviews (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2009; 2011 | Sept 2009 | |
| AOCS Press - American Oil Chemistry Society | No | No | 2003- | Sept 2009 | |
| APS - American Physical Society | No | No | 2000- | Sept 2009 | |
| APS - American Phytopathological Society | Yes | Yes | duration subscription | Feb 2010 | |
| Asian Development Bank | No | No | 1994- | Sept 2009 | |
| ASAE Technical library | Yes | Yes | 2004- | No commercial use. | Sept 2009 |
| Bio Med Central | Yes | Yes | ? | Only for material marked as "open access" | March 2011 |
| BioOne (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2009-2011 | Sept 2009 | |
| Blackwell Science | see Wiley InterScience | Sept 2009 | |||
| Brill (via SURF) | Not explicitly | Yes | 2008-2010; 2011-2013 | Sept 2009 | |
| CABI Publishing | Yes | Yes | 2003- | Remove if no longer used; No commercial use | Sept 2009 |
| Canadian Institute of Forestry | No | No | 2002- | Sept 2009 | |
| CBS | Yes | Yes | 2009- | Sept 2009 | |
| Dekker journals | see Taylor & Francis | Sept 2009 | |||
| Elsevier Science Journals: Science Direct Online (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2010-2014 | March 2011 | |
| Emerald (via SURF) | Yes | Not mentioned | 2010-2012 | It is allowed to distribute course-packs for free to our own students | Sept 2009 |
| Evolutionary Ecology Research | Yes | Yes | 2004- | Sept 2009 | |
| Georg Thieme Verlag KG | No | No | 2009- | Sept 2009 | |
| Haworth Press | see Taylor & Francis | Sept 2009 | |||
| Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) | No | No | 2007- | Sept 2009 | |
| Inderscience Academic Publishers | Yes | Yes | 2003- | Sept 2009 | |
| IOS Press (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2007-2012 | Sept 2009 | |
| JSTOR (via SURF) | No | Forbidden | 2008-2011 | Sept 2009 | |
| Karger (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2007-2012 | March 2011 | |
| Keesings Historisch Archief (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2007-2012 | Sept 2009 | |
| Kluwer Academic Publishers | see Springer | Sept 2009 | |||
| Lexis Nexis (Krantenbank) (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2010-2012 | Feb 2010 | |
| Lippincott Williams & Wilkins Inc. (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2006-2010; 2011-2013 | March 2011 | |
| Mary Ann Liebert (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2007-2012 | Sept 2009 | |
| Multi-Science Publishing (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2009-2011 | Sept 2009 | |
| Nature Publishing Group (MacMillan) | No | No | 2006- | Sept 2009 | |
| New England Journal of Medicine | No | No | 1993- | Sept 2009 | |
| OECD (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2008-2010 | see also http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/about/copyright | March 2011 |
| Office for Official Publications of the European Communities | Yes | Yes | 2005-2008 | see http://europa.eu/geninfo/legal_notices_nl.htm#copyright | Sept 2009 |
| Oxford University Press (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2006-2009; 2010-2012 | July 2010 | |
| Palgrave MacMillan Journals | see Nature | Sept 2009 | |||
| Poultry Science Association | No | No | 2002- | Sept 2009 | |
| Pion (voorheen Turpion) | Yes | Yes | ? | zie: http://www.turpion.org/licen.html | Sept 2009 |
| Routledge | see Taylor & Francis | Feb 2010 | |||
| Sage (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2009-2011 | Sept 2009 | |
| SAS - Society for Applied Spectroscopy | Forbidden | Forbidden | 2002- | Permission required | Sept 2009 |
| SDU Uitgevers (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2009-2010 | Sept 2009 | |
| Society for General Microbiology | No | No | 2000?- | Sept 2009 | |
| Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematic | No | No | 2002- | Permission required | Sept 2009 |
| Springer Journals | Yes | Not mentioned | 2008-2009; 2010-2011 | March 2011 | |
| Taylor & Francis (via SURF) | No | No | 2011-2012 | Permission required | Nov 2011 |
| The Scientific World Journal (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2009-2011 | Sept 2009 | |
| Thomson Reuters (Web of Science, JCR, ESI) (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2008-2010; 2011-2013 | March 2011 | |
| University of Chicago Press | Forbidden | Forbidden | 2001- | Permission required | Sept 2009 |
| Wiley InterScience / John Wiley (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2009-2011 | Sept 2009 | |
E-books
| Publisher | Explicit permission for | Duration and licence | Remarks | Update | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| printed reader | digital reader | ||||
| CABI e-books | Yes | Yes | 2008- | March 2010 | |
| Encyclopaedia Britannica (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | ongoing | March 2011 | |
| Elsevier e-books | No | No | 2009- | Feb 2010 | |
| Oxford Reference Online (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2008-2010 | Sept 2009 | |
| Sage Reference | Yes | Yes | 2010- | April 2010 | |
| Springer e-books | Yes | Yes | 2010- | A resonable amount - no complete books | Feb 2010 |
| Wiley e-books (via SURF) | Yes | Yes | 2009-2011 | Chapters or articles only | Sept 2009 |
Referencing versus full inclusion
If it is unclear whether publishers' material can be used without permission, or if such use is explicitly prohibited, a reference to the publication (whether in print or on the internet) forms a good alternative to the full inclusion of the material concerned. This makes a big difference in both costs and administration.
No fee needs to be paid for an internet reference (link) to material that is freely accessible on the Internet. This also applies to links to electronic resources that are not freely accessible but for which the Library has entered into a licence agreement for use within Wageningen UR.
If an electronic document features a DOI, this can be used to put together a link to it. DOI stands for Digital Object Identifier and is a unique number for electronic documents. The DOI is usually stated on the first page of the document. A stable link to the document can be created using the prefix http://dx.doi.org/ (for example, for a document with the DOI 10.1016/j.molbiopara.2003.08.017, the URL is http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.molbiopara.2003.08.017).
If an article does not have a DOI, you will in many cases be able to copy the URL from the address bar in the internet browser. These links may only be valid for a limited period of time, particularly when they include a session ID.
Flow chart
This flow chart is a step-by-step guide to what you need to do if you want to use copyright-protected material in teaching materials.Contact persons
Each department has a contact person for matters relating to copyright and the use of copyright-protected materials in education. These contact persons can answer questions on this topic and provide advice regarding invoices. They do not act as intermediaries for applications for permission to use material or for the payment of invoices to Stichting PRO.
- Agrotechnology & Food Sciences / Agrotechnologie en voedingswetenschappen
- mr. T.G.L.E. Bessems
- Animal Sciences / Dierwetenschappen
- mw. ing. G.J. Noordewier
- Environmental Sciences / Omgevingswetenschappen
- mw. E.C.W.M. Ruyten
- Plant Sciences / Plantenwetenschappen
- drs. D.F. Rademaker
- Social Sciences / Maatschappijwetenschappen
- ing. H.W.A. Houweling
If you have any questions or comments on this page, please contact Aquila Weijers at Wageningen UR Library, tel. +31 (0)317 4 84541.
Further reading
- Stichting PRO (in Dutch only)
- Copyright in Higher Education (SURF)
- Auteursrecht en onderwijs.nl (sectie universiteiten) (in Dutch only)
- Auteursrecht.nl (in Dutch only)
- Dutch copyright in images and audio
- Ius Mentis - Veel voorkomende vragen over het Nederlands auteursrecht (in Dutch only)
Disclaimer
Although the greatest possible care has been taken in the compilation of the contents of this Internet site, it remains possible that certain information may become outdated over time or may be incomplete. Wageningen UR Library offers no guarantee that the information provided on this Internet site is up to date or complete, and cannot under any circumstances be held liable for any direct or indirect loss arising from the use of the information provided on this Internet site.
 Wageningen Digital Library, 3 March 2011
|