NASA Ames Technical Library

Privately copyrighted material should not be reproduced without permission or license from the copyright owner, unless permitted under the fair use doctrine codified in 17 USC §107. Single copy reproduction of portions of such material for use by the copier for official research or related purposes is ordinarily permissible. Any questions concerning the reproduction of copyrighted material should be referred to counsel.

By use of the Library's online resources you agree to abide by the copyright and/or site license conditions set forth by the database producer.

If you have any questions, please contact the library at 4-6325 or e-mail Main Library.

License Agreements

The Ames Library pays to lease access to online journals and books for the benefit of the Ames community.  The use of Library-subscribed electronic materials is limited by license agreements negotiated between NASA and the publishers/vendors.  Almost all of these licenses prohibit users from engaging in "systematic" or "excessive" downloading from the resource.

Excessive Downloading

Here are some examples of what the publishers mean by "excessive downloading":

• Rapidly downloading one article after another
• Continuously downloading tables of contents, search results, citations, or output
• Downloading entire issues or volumes of an e-journal
• Downloading the entire contents of an e-book or multimedia resource
• Using robots, spiders, or other automated programs to download from subscription resources

Other License Violations

Other actions that violate our licenses include:

• Sharing passwords with unauthorized users
• Redistributing information from online resources to unauthorized users
• Posting information retrieved or downloaded from online resources to a listserv, on a website, or to an email list
• Reselling, redistributing or reproduction of any journal text, output, search results, or other information in any form or medium
• Redistribution of materials to non-subscribers or to non-subscribing institutions

Adapted from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Library website, retrieved at: http://library.ust.hk/info/excessive-use.html

Stanford University information on how copyright applies to research:

• BASIC COPYRIGHT PRINCIPLES
• THE FAIR USE DOCTRINE
• THE FIRST-SALE DOCTRINE
• THE INTERNET & COPYRIGHT PRINCIPLES
• THE DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT & PEER-TO-PEER FILE-SHARING
• OBTAINING PERMISSION TO USE COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL
• PUBLISHING WORKS IN JOURNALS
• RESOURCES ON COPYRIGHT AND FAIR USE