JSTOR Copyright Infringement to Distribute Articles to Students?
Question : I recently downloaded several articles from JSTOR in preparation for courses in the coming semester and academic research. I am confused by certain JSTOR policies and legal fair use requirements primarily with regards to the distribution of certain articles in the classroom and when I must seek permission directly from a publisher for each article. Under JSTOR terms and conditions Permitted Uses (2.1) include:1 research activities;
2 classroom instruction and related classroom activities;
3 student assignments
While Prohibited Uses (2.2) include:
Institutions and users may not: reproduce or distribute Content in bulk any form, such as by including Content in course packs or electronic reserves.
In 2.1 I understand that I may distribute downloaded articles in my course and yet in 2.2 I understand that I may not. Please advise. Thank you.
I am not surprised that you are confused by the JSTOR terms. JSTOR draws a very fine distinction between making copies for your own use in preparing for classroom instruction (authorized in 2.1) and distributing JSTOR materials in bulk to students (prohibited in 2.2). Here is the response from the JSTOR lawyer from when we posed this question to her in the past:
To answer your question, JSTOR allows links to material in the archive (including links from a university library home page or a course home page); however, we do not allow the use of e-reserves or course packs, as our participating publishers would view this as encroaching on a tradition source of revenue. For those uses, we ask that libraries seek permission directly from the publisher, and we provide publisher contact information to facilitate this process. Our hope is that the use of links to the archive provides a helpful compromise by enabling faculty to direct students to certain articles while enabling JSTOR to stay within the bounds of uses with which our participating publishers are comfortable.
What JSTOR suggests is that you provide students with links to the articles that you want them to read. The students may then print out the individual articles. You may also make a single copy for your own use. What you cannot do under the terms of the license is make a copy of each article for every student in the class.
Often one might be able to argue that distributing copies of the articles to students would be a fair use (see the “Fair Use Checklist” at http://www.copyright.cornell.edu). “Fair uses” are permitted by the terms of the license in 2.1. Unfortunately, the license stipulates that any such fair use is limited by the restrictions in 2.2, so one cannot use “fair use” as the basis to authorize the bulk distribution of articles to students.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further questions.
Peter B. Hirtle
CUL Intellectual Property Officer and
Technology Strategist
Cornell University Library
215 Olin Library
Ithaca, NY 14853-5301
peter.hirtle@cornell.edu
t. 607.255-4033
f. 607/255-2493
http://www.copyright.cornell.edu