Copyright: FAQ

As a result of the Canada-United States-Mexico agreement, the term of copyright changed December 30, 2022 from life of the creator plus 50 years to life of the creator plus 70 years.

As noted in  A guide to copyright for Canadian hospitals, 2013: An instructional resource (p. 5) there can be different copyright owners: 

Creator/author: If you create/ author an original work you own the copyright. In Canada, a work is automatically protected by copyright. In other words, you don’t need to mark your work with the copyright symbol or register it with the Canadian Intellectual Property Office in order for it to be copyright protected. 

Publisher: Traditionally, authors have assigned their copyright to a publisher; however, new publishing models, allow authors to retain some or all of their copyrights.

Employer: If you create/author a work over the course of your employment, your employer owns the copyright – the latter is the case unless there is an agreement or arrangement to the contrary.

Another Party: In this case the author/creator has transferred/sold their copyright to someone else and no longer owns it; for example, if you write a song and then transfer/sell your rights to that song to Sony, Sony would be the copyright owner for that song.

References:

Figurski, J., & McDiarmid, M. (2013). Ontario Health Libraries Association (2013). A guide to copyright for Canadian hospitals, 2013: An instructional resource (and accompanying PowerPoint Presentation). Retrieved June 5, 2019 from:  http://ohla.on.ca/ohla2017/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/OHLA_Guide_to_Copyright_2013.pdf

Harris, L. E. (2014). Canadian copyright law. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Yes. Whether an item is available in print or in electronic format, it is protected by copyright. For example, the reports, articles, or other documents you may find on the internet fall under the category of “literary works” in the Copyright Act, just like their print counterparts. Photographs or comic strips, regardless of whether they are in a print book, a journal/magazine delivered to your office, or whether they are posted freely on a website - these types of items are considered “artistic works” within the Act and they too are copyright protected. 

When a work has entered the public domain, the copyright has expired on it. You won’t be infringing on copyright if you use/reproduce the work, nor are you required to get permission to do so from the copyright holder (Harris, 2014, p. 133).

Reference:

Harris, L. E. (2014). Canadian Copyright Law. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Call Number: KE 2799. H37 2014 NOSMW

The Copyright Act does not specify whether it is permissible to disseminate articles by email and it doesn’t appear that this aspect of the law has been tested yet.

Our Access Services Librarian works diligently to see that there are robust provisions for electronic reserves and scholarly communication within our licenses. Because there are numerous licenses, it falls to a case-by-case basis.

We recommend the use of persistent links as it is a common and tested practice. It is also the simplest and least time consuming mechanism, especially if the circulation of material is outside a structured online curriculum system.

Sadly, the short answer is, no. Photographs, cartoons, graphics, etcetera (hitherto referred to as images) that you find on the internet through a Google search are, the vast majority of the time, protected by copyright. This means that if you want to make use of a particular image you’ll need to seek out permission from the copyright owner to use it in your document/website/ etcetera.

Exceptions to this rule are images in the public domain or images that have been created under a creative commons license. If an image is in the public domain then copyright has expired and you no longer need to seek permission to use that image. On the other hand, creative commons licenses allow users to make use of a work, in our case an image, without seeking permission for said use from the copyright holder -- the caveat is that, depending on the type of creative commons licence, you may, for example, have to provide an attribution statement, or not be allowed to alter the image, not be able to use it for commercial purposes, etcetera. In other words, creative commons licenses outline specific terms and conditions that govern the use of that image (or another work). 

Websites with Free Images:

Unsplash - "All photos published on Unsplash can be used for free. You can use them for commercial and noncommercial purposes. You do not need to ask permission from or provide credit to the photographer or Unsplash, although it is appreciated when possible." (License, para. 1)

Pixabay - "Pixabay is a vibrant community of creatives, sharing copyright free images and videos. All contents are released under the Pixabay License, which makes them safe to use without asking for permission or giving credit to the artist - even for commercial purposes." (FAQ, para. 1)

Wikimedia commons - "The Wikimedia Foundation owns almost none of the content on Wikimedia sites — the content is owned, instead, by the individual creators of it. However, almost all content hosted on Wikimedia Commons may be subject to certain restrictions (in many cases). You do not need to obtain a specific statement of permission from the licensor(s) of the content unless you wish to use the work under different terms than the license states.” (Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia, para. 1)