Copyright and intellectual property issues are a part of the fabric of research and scholarly communications, and thus all Stanford faculty, students and staff need a working understanding of copyright law as it impacts their daily lives. The Copyright Reminder, which highlights common campus copyright concerns and outlines fundamental elements of US copyright law, is distributed annually to ensure that the Stanford community remains aware of those issues.
Link to it
Linking is not copying! It is generally acceptable to point others to material posted on the Internet by providing a link to the website. The link itself is not a copy of the content--it is merely a direction to content. Because the link provider is not making copies, linking is generally outside the boundaries of copyright law. The exception is that it could be contributory infringement to provide a link to a website knowingly hosting copyrighted material unlawfully. So, link to publishing sources directly, such as journals or newspapers.
In most cases, you can provide direct links to licensed material such as journal articles to others who have access to material under the same license. This is particularly useful in CourseWork and other course management systems, where most participants in the class will have access to the full suite of material licensed by the library. Faculty can provide links to readings, and won’t have to worry about the license fees that would be required if those readings were uploaded to the system.
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