Copyright Notices for Supervised Library Copying: Updated Information for Library Services

Prepared by the Copyright Management Center
Kenneth D. Crews, Associate Dean of the Faculties for Copyright Management
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
530 West New York Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202-3225
Voice: 317-274-4400 Fax: 317-278-3326
http://www.copyright.iupui.edu

September 9, 1999

Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act allows qualifying libraries to make limited copies of materials under specific conditions. In general, libraries may make copies for preservation, for replacement of lost, damaged, or stolen works, for upgrading to some new formats, for private research and study by library users, and for delivery to other libraries through interlibrary loan.¹ This overview focuses on the notices that libraries are required to post whenever staff members make copies for library patrons. Portions of this overview reflect procedures that have been part of the law since its most recent full revision in 1976; other portions reflect changes in the law made by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, passed by Congress in October 1998.

Section 108 requires that supervised copying services in libraries employ two notices: (1) an advisory notice posted at the place where requests are made and on order forms that patrons may fill out to request copies; and (2) a notice of copyright on the copies themselves.

Notice at Order Desk and on Order Forms

The law prescribes the form of notice that must be posted at the desk where orders for copies are accepted and on order forms:

NOTICE WARNING CONCERNING COPYRIGHT RESTRICTIONS

The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material.

Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specific conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user may be liable for copyright infringement.

This institution reserves the right to refuse a copying order if, in its judgment, fulfillment of the order would involve violation of copyright law.

According to regulations from the U.S. Copyright Office (Code of Federal Regulations, Title 37, Section 201.14), this warning must be displayed verbatim and "printed on heavy paper or other durable material in type at least 18 points in size, and shall be displayed prominently in such manner and location as to be clearly visible, legible, and comprehensible to a casual observer within the immediate vicinity of the place where orders are accepted."

When printing this notice on order forms, the regulations specify that it:

[S]hall be printed within a box located prominently on the order form itself, either on the front side of the form or immediately adjacent to the space calling for the name or signature of the person using the form. The notice shall be printed in type size no smaller than that used predominantly throughout the form, and in no case shall the type size be smaller than 8 points. The notice shall be printed in such manner as to be clearly legible, comprehensible, and readily apparent to a casual reader of the form.

Notices on Copies

The law also requires that the copies themselves include a notice, but the law does not specify the exact form of that notice. For more than twenty years, librarians and publishers debated whether the "notice" on the copy should be the formal copyright notice as found on the original (for example, "Copyright 1999, XYZ Publishing Company"), or whether it need only be some general indication that copyright applied to the work (for example, "use of this material is governed by copyright law"). The Digital Millennium Copyright Act resolved that debate. All copies made under Section 108 now must include the notice of copyright as it appears on the original work. If no notice appears on the original, then the copy must include "a legend stating that the work may be protected by copyright."

Accordingly, the Copyright Management Center suggests that libraries making copies pursuant to Section 108 adopt and implement the following procedures with respect to all copies:

If the original work includes a formal copyright notice, the copy should include the following statement:

"The work from which this copy was made included the following copyright notice: __________."

The librarian making the copy should transcribe the original copyright notice into the blank space. When making a copy of a work, many librarians instead routinely photocopy the page from the book or journal on which the copyright notice appears. Attaching a photocopy of the original notice to the copied article ought to be satisfactory.²
If the version of the work available to the librarian making the copy does not include a formal copyright notice, the librarian must place on the copy "a legend stating that the work may be protected by copyright." Such a "legend" may take many forms , but the following form may be helpful to librarians and patrons:³

"The work from which this copy was made did not include a formal copyright notice. This work may be protected under U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S. Code), which governs reproduction, distribution, public display, and certain other us es of protected works. Uses may be allowed with permission from the rightsholder, or if the copyright on the work has expired, or if the use is "fair use" or within another exemption. The user of this work is responsible for determining lawful uses."

If the user of the copy may need to trace the copy to the originating library (as may be the case with manuscripts secured from the collections of archives or special collections), the library may want to include with that notice a simple statement such as: "IUPUI Copyright Management Center, Special Collections and Archives (317) 274-0464."

¹ The nature of the limits in Section 108 is not the subject of this document. The text of Section 108 and other related materials are available on the Copyright Management Center website: http://www.copyright.iupui.edu. Return to text.

² Some members of the library community disagree whether a librarian is required to locate the copyright notice at the front of a journal and to reprint it with an individual article. See, particularly, the analysis at http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/notice.html. While that analysis may be strictly within the law, finding and copying the notice at the front of the journal is ordinarily not a difficult task, and using that notice may in fact be easier than applying a general "legend." Reprinting that notice is also not likely to do any harm. Return to text.

³ In an effort to be helpful, this suggested form of notice includes more information than the law actually requires. If your objective is only to comply with the law, consider using this statement: "This material may be protected by copyright." Return to text.

Copyright 1999, The Trustees of Indiana University.
For information about this work, please contact the Copyright Management Center at the address set forth above. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute copies of this work for nonprofit educational purposes, provided that copies are distributed at or below cost, and that the author, source, and copyright notice are include on each copy. This permission is in addition to rights of reproduction granted under Sections 107, 108, and other provisions of the U.S. Copyright Act. Before making any distribution of this work, please contact the Copyright Management Center to ascertain whether you have the current version.