User rights and responsibilities

“The promotion of learning” is copyright’s original purpose, and if you’re a teacher, a student, a researcher, or anyone who supports the University’s mission, you’re engaged with copyright every day, whether you know it or not. In many cases, you can happily go about your business and copyright will remain in the background. But from time to time it will be important to understand how copyright affects your use of library collections and other materials that are important to your work. The pages collected here have information on some of the most common, recurring contexts where copyright comes into play for university faculty, students, and staff.

For a general overview of copyright, check out our Copyright Essentials page. And because every user is also an author, you may find our pages on Authors’ Rights helpful. Finally, users who work or study at UVA may need to refer to relevant Laws, Policies, and Guidelines to learn how your use may be governed by existing rules.