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• Research and Study Purposes
  • Your Copyright in your Own Work
  • Using Others' Copyright Work
  • Resources
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  • Using Text and Graphic Works
  • Using Sound, Film, Radio and Music
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  • Copyright Index

Copyright for Teaching Purposes

Insubstantial Portions

The insubstantial portion provisions contained in the Copyright Act allow an educational institution to make multiple copies of and to communicate an insubstantial portion of a literary or dramatic work without the need to seek permission from the copyright owner.

 An insubstantial portion of a literary or dramatic work is defined as:

• one or two pages if it is hardcopy and less than 200 pages
• no more than one per cent of the total number of pages in the literary or dramatic work if there are more than 200 pages in hardcopy
• no more that one per cent of the words in the work if the work is in electronic form.

But note the following provisos:

• Copying or communicating the whole of a work will never fit within the insubstantial portion exemption. Accordingly, copies and communications of an entire article in a periodical publication, or the entire text of a pamphlet, cannot fall within the exemption.
• The exemption does not apply at all to artistic or musical works, and radio and television broadcasts. The copying of cartoons (and possibly graphs), as well as sheet music, will therefore fall outside the exemption.
• The copying or communication must be carried out on the premises of the University.
• A period of more than 14 days must elapse before a person relying on this provision can seek to copy any other part of the same work in reliance on it.
• Any parts of a work previously made available online in reliance on the insubstantial portion provision must be taken down before a person can make another part of the work available in reliance on this provision.

It is not a requirement that copying or communication undertaken pursuant to this section includes an acknowledgement of source. However, in any infringement action, the University will be better placed if it can substantiate the source. Further, the need to take account of the right of attribution introduced by the moral rights changes to the Copyright Act will mean that it is important to attribute author and source wherever practicable.