About this guide

Purpose of this guide

The purpose of this guide is to inform students and faculty about their rights and responsibilities pertaining to the use of copyrighted material and to assist them in making decisions regarding the use of copyrighted works for their teaching and research activities. It does not aim to provide opinions as to what can and cannot be legally done according to the Copyright Act and other applicable laws, policies, guidelines, and norms.

Members of the Concordia University community are encouraged to also consult Concordia's guiding documents and policies.

When in doubt, librarians can provide information and resources on copyright.

How to get help

Have you explored our copyright guide and still need help?

Your subject librarian is an excellent go-to person to discuss resources and information. We have subject librarian specialists across disciplines in arts and science, engineering and computer science, fine arts, and business, as well as scholarly and instructional services librarians. If you are a graduate student, you may also consider discussing your question with your supervisor or committee.

If you are still determining who to contact directly, email copyright.questions@concordia.ca. The Library houses the copyright email in collaboration with Concordia's Legal Services.

Further support

Further support can be obtained, if necessary, from resources at Concordia’s Legal Services. Please note that Legal Services does not provide personal legal advice to individual members of the Concordia community. It is your sole responsibility to make sure that you respect all applicable laws, including the Copyright Act, as well as all applicable policies, guidelines and agreements.

Concordia's guiding documents and policies

Policy on Intellectual Property, VPRGS-9

Policy on Copyright Compliance, SG-2

The Provost's COPIBEC Memo (Use of copyrighted material for courses) and its Appendix

Credits

Prepared by the Copyright Committee (alphabetical order)

Me Alison Beck, Legal Counsel
Geoffrey Robert Little, Associate University Librarian, Scholarly Communications
Me Georges Aubé, Legal Counsel
Megan Fitzgibbons, Instructional Services Coordinator
Rachel Harris, Scholarly Publishing Librarian

Special thanks to Pamela Carson, Web Services Librarian, for consultations and implementation of web design, Ann Marie Fitzgerald, Reference Assistant, and Miranda Monosky and Jingjing Li, Student Librarians.

Guides cited and consulted

Copyright at SFU (Simon Fraser University), Copyright at UBC (University of British Colombia), Copyright - University of Victoria, Bureau du droit d’auteur (Université Laval), Copyright at Waterloo (University of Waterloo), and Guide sur le droit d'auteur (Université de Montréal).

A previous version of the copyright guide for theses and dissertations was prepared by the Library Copyright Working Group (Pamela Carson, Olivier Charbonneau, Jocelyn Godolphin, Alex Guindon, Andrea Harland, Annie Murray, Tomasz Neugebauer, Sonia Poulin and Melinda Reinhart).