United States Copyright law provides important exceptions for education to the exclusive rights of copyright owners. Vanderbilt University provides mechanisms for identifying and obtaining work to use in the classroom. An enormous amount of work is available through the library's catalog, providing the ability for instructors to provide links to the material. Vanderbilt also provides a Course Reading List Tool that integrates with BrightSpace to provide reading lists which includes both library-subscribed materials, as well as material requiring copyright clearance. For items not available through the VU Libraries or the Course Reading List Tool, the library can request copyright clearance directly from rights holders (NOTE: costs will be involved). Finally, Fair Use can be a viable option for classroom material.
We can assist you in preparing course readings by providing:
Contact us at copyright@vanderbilt.edu.
Vanderbilt provides resources to ensure the materials posted on Brightspace are consistent with University Copyright Policy. The attached document below offers a workflow for this process. For further instructions on using the Course Reading List Tool to build a reading list for Brightspace, read this guide.
Invoices for licensing fees are paid by the University Librarian's Office and billed back quarterly to the requesting schools. It is advised that professors check with their department chairs ahead of time about any limitations or guidelines that may be in place regarding fees as this can vary from department to department or school to school.
All of the material included in Printed Classpacks must be cleared by Copyright Clearance Service at Vanderbilt. Permissions can take as long as 6-8 weeks to clear, so please allow adequate time.
Please submit a ClassPack Request Form to copyright@vanderbilt.edu. The form is found here: https://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/disc/copyright/clearance.php.
When you are notified that all contents have cleared copyright, please provide the materials to Campus Copy. Materials can be sent in PDF form as an e-mail attachment to campuscopy@vanderbilt.edu, or e-mail campus copy and request materials be picked up by their courier.
Note that any licensing fees are incorporated into the cost of the classpack. Thus, students pay the fees when purchasing the classpack.
Section 110[1] of the Copyright Act provides protections for the public display of copyrighted work in the face-to-face classroom, provided the class is part of a non-profit educational institution, the material directly relates to the course and is only available to those students registered in the course, measures are taken to prevent further dissemination of the work, and the material is legally obtained. The TEACH Act extends these protections to include distance learning.
