Does citing a copyright protected work make it okay to copy it?
No. Citing the source of a work you use is good academic practice and helps you avoid plagiarism, but citation alone does not mean you are permitted to copy the work.
In order to legally copy a copyright protected work for use in teaching materials, assignments, or theses, your use must be permitted by one of the following:
- explicit permission from the copyright owner;
- use of an “insubstantial” amount, e.g. a typical short quote of a few sentences;
- a users’ rights exception in the Copyright Act, such as fair dealing;
- the terms of a license, like those the MRU Library has for ejournals and ebooks; or
- the terms of an open license, such as a Creative Commons license, applied to the work by its copyright owner