We find and interact with materials online everyday and most of that online content we interact with is protected by Copyright. “So much of our normal everyday behavior puts us at risk of infringing copyright, especially since so much of our life is digital.”[i] “The copyright regime cannot be considered fit for the digital age when millions of citizens are in daily breach of copyright, simply for shifting a piece of music or video from one device to another. People are confused about what is allowed and what is not with the risk that the law falls into disrepute.”[ii]

February 21 – 25th marks Fair Dealing week a time to highlight user rights, and promote the opportunities presented by the Fair Dealing provision of the Copyright act. During this week we aim to explain Fair Dealing and how it applies to our daily uses of copyright materials.

As part of Fair Dealing week the video guide to Fair Dealing posted above has been created. The the RRC Polytech Copyright officer. The video touches on the basics of exercising user rights in relation to Education, Private Study, and Research in the video.

How we engage with copyright materials matters. As students and educators are not only individuals who use content, but are also creators of content. Fair Dealing is the doctrine that balances the right of users and creators and allows the navigation of user and creator rights for innovation that benefits society at large.

The RRC Polytech Library is dedicated to helping students, faculty and staff, navigate our institutional copyright policy. We offer a Fair Dealing tool to help streamline policy navigation and help ensure copying is in accordance with our policy guidelines. If you need to make a copy check out this quiz based tool!

The library also hosts a suite of copyright support services to help inform staff and students toempower those within our college community to make copyright decisions that exercise their user rights and respect the rights of creators in accordance with our policy.

To learn more about copyright be sure to check out our copyright resource pages on the RRC Polytech library website. For copyright support or assistance at any point get in touch with the RRC Copyright Officer.

Happy Fair Dealing Week.

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[i] Muller, Stan. Crash Course Intellectual Property #3: Copyright, Exceptions and Fair Use.

[ii] Hargreaves, Ian. Digital Opportunity: A Review of Intellectual Property and Growth. UK Intellectual Property Office. P 5