How does Copyright Law affect Document Delivery?
The Copyright Law of the United States (Title 17, US Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries are authorized to furnish a photocopy or reproduction. One of these specific conditions is that the copy is not to be “used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship or research.” Libraries are able to provide journal articles to their users because the copyright law makes provision for the fair use of published materials. However, there are restrictions on interlibrary loan requests. For example, libraries are not permitted to request for free more than five articles in a calendar year from a single journal title for its last five years of publication (the “5-in-5 rule”). You are also not allowed to ask for an entire issue of a journal. Document Delivery from our own collection is possible because the library has already paid for a subscription to the journal. If a user makes a
