Insubstantial Copying
Posted by vanessat on January 16, 2007
This week we look at insubstantial copying. It has been a long established practice that educational institutions can copy ‘insubstantial portions’ of literary and dramatic works, NOT musical or artistic.
These copies have to be used in the course of education, on the premises of the institution, and a whole work can never be copied. This is totally free and not remunerable under the statutory licence.
What is insubstantial? In the old terms this was 1% of the original work if the work was over 200 pages, or two pages for works under 200 pages. Nor could a teacher use any part of the same book within 14 days.
What the amendments did was legalise what many have been doing anyway, for electronic works. If an electronic document is paginated, like a printed book, for example a PDF document, then you can copy 1 to 2 pages.
For works that are not paginated, you must go back to the old rule of no more than 1% of the words, and it has added that they must be consecutive to be considered insubstantial. Otherwise it is considered remunerable under the statutory licence.
What you must do: To comply with the Act, all you need to do, is include a citation of the original work.
