Copyright & Fair Dealing

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About Copyright & "Fair Dealing"

"Copyright is the legal protection of literary, dramatic, artistic, and musical works, sound recordings, performances, and communications signals. The fair-dealing provision in the Copyright Act permits the use of a copyright-protected work without obtaining permission from the copyright owner or paying copyright royalties if the use is considered 'fair.' The Fair Dealing Guidelines apply to non-profit K─12 schools and postsecondary education institutions and provide reasonable safeguards for the owners of copyright-protected works in accordance with the Copyright Act and the Supreme Court decision" (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada).

To learn more about copyright or fair dealing, please email lauren.bull@ugdsb.on.ca.

"This booklet gives teachers user-friendly information on copyright law, covering items from the Canadian Copyright Act and its regulations, contractual and tariff arrangements with copyright collectives, and court decisions."

Fair Dealing Decision Tool

Use this decision-tree tool created by the Council of Ministers of Education, Canda (CMEC) to determine whether the way you want to use a copyright-protected resource is covered by "fair dealing" - the special allowance for education under the Copyright Act.

Fair Dealing Guidelines

Use this overview of "fair dealing" to learn more about the exceptions that apply to using copyright-protected materials for educational purposes.

Guidelines for showing videos/films at school

Fair dealing provisions permit teachers to show or stream films in the classroom without obtaining a license or paying additional fees, as long as it is for educational purposes and "the copy was obtained legitimately...If you are using an audiovisual or sound recording found on the Internet, you may show it in class only if you reasonably think that the copyright holder permitted its use on-line." (Council of Ministers of Education, Canada)

Showing films at school for non-educational purposes

To show a film at school in any context other than in the classroom for educational purposes (i.e. fundraiser, movie night, special event), staff have the following options:

Choose a film on ON-Core - access from the student UGCloud landing page.
Choose a film on Criterion - access from Criterion-on-Demand for Educator Access.

If you aren't able to find a film using the above two methods:

Choose a film that is represented by Criterion Pictures (full catalogue searchable here: https://www.criterionpic.com/cpl/qsearch.htx) and is not still in theatres - a legally obtained copy may be shown in this case.
Purchase a public performance license to show a film owned by a staff member, borrowed from the public library, etc. Licenses can be purchased from ACF - visit their website to complete a quote request form (choose the option for "Single or Multiple Presentation Licenses").

Subscription services (Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, etc.)

Rarely, if ever, can films accessed from a teacher's personal subscription service be shown or streamed in the classroom. “Showing movies from subscription services in the classroom is governed by the terms of the agreement between the subscriber and the subscription service. If the agreement provides that use is limited to ‘personal’ or ‘household’ use, for example, then classroom use is not permitted" (Copyright Matters! 5th edition).

Can I use images I found on Google for my lesson plans, presentations, etc.?

It depends how you were searching and what images you want to use. Images found through a Google search cannot automatically be used. In the same way that we have to cite textual information that we find online, we need to do the same for images and visual information.

Use the Usage Rights tool in Google to search by Creative Commons licenses - this limits your search to only images where the creators have designated that their materials can be freely reused, without the same concerns about breaching copyright.

Alternatively, if you’ve found an image through a regular Google search that you really want to use, contact the creator to ask for permission - in many cases, creators are willing for their work to be shared if you provide an attribution to them.

Free photos & videos for downloading and reuse

I just purchased a resource from Teachers Pay Teachers - since I own the copy, can I share it with my colleagues?

It depends on how the resource creator/seller has set their reproduction and sharing permissions. In many cases, a Teachers Pay Teachers vendor will specify how the purchased resource can be used.

If you are unsure about the creator's permissions, contact them before reproducing or sharing your copy - get things in writing. If you use a resource in a way that the creator has not permitted, this violates copyright.

I want to copy pages from a couple different student workbooks to create a new resource - since I'm copying less than 10% of the originals, is this okay?

No. Fair dealing does not cover “consumable resources” - published items intended for one-time use (workbooks, activity sheets, fill-in-the-blank handouts).

Unless the published workbooks say explicitly that you can copy them, or you have received written permission from the creator/publisher to reproduce the materials, you cannot copy these resources even in small amounts.