Copy Restrictions

It is against the law to make copies of certain government documents, including government obligations or securities (such as money), postage stamps, passports, immigration and citizenship papers. For a more complete list of prohibited items, see "Illegal Use of Copiers"

Copyrighted materials may not be copied without the permission of the copyright owner, except:

  1. For purposes of criticism, comment, news, reporting, teaching or scholarly research, you can make a single copy of any of the following:
    • a chapter of a book;
    • a short story, essay or poem or (less than 50 page) article from a periodical or newspaper; or
    • a chart, graph, diagram etc., from a book, periodical or newspaper
  2. You can make multiple copies of the above items for classroom use, providing
    • you make no more than 20 copies of each document
    • you copy no more than 10 documents total
    • the copies meet the "brevity" and "spontaneity" tests as defined in Title 17 of the U.S. code of law (contact the Labs legal department for further information on these definitions)