Does citing a copyright protected work make it okay to copy it?
No. Citing the source of a work you use is an important 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