Copyright Policy
Policy on Distributing The Cancer Letter
This document sets forth the guidelines for sharing and distributing the copyrighted material in The Cancer Letter publications, in compliance with the U.S. Copyright Act.
If you have an institutional subscription, you can share our content with others within your institution. As an employee of an institution with an IP-verified site license, you can forward PDF copies of our publications and web links (URLs) to individual stories to others within your institution.
If you have an individual subscription, you can download and print PDF copies of our publications for your personal use, and access our web content. You are not allowed to share or distribute our content on a regular basis via email or other media to others within your institution or elsewhere.
Example 1
A division within an agency of the federal government, which does not have an institutional subscription, is, on a weekly basis, forwarding issues and stories in The Cancer Letter publications to its employees. We regard this as a violation of copyright.
Example 2
A cancer center takes one individual subscription to The Cancer Letter. A PDF version of every week’s issue is printed out and either (1) circulated with a buck-slip, requiring each reader to mark his or her initials, or (2) placed in a central location where it can be accessed by staff. The Cancer Letter regards these as the only acceptable ways to share our copyrighted content. This inconvenience can be eliminated when the institution switches to an institutional subscription.
Example 3
A pharmaceutical company takes one individual subscription to The Cancer Letter. It provides the login information to a number of its employees, allowing them access to stories and other content at will. This is a violation of our copyright, and the company is urged to obtain an institutional subscription.
Example 4
An oncologist at a cancer center wins a prestigious award, which is reported in The Cancer Letter. She sends out a copy of the issue, or the story to 200 of her friends and colleagues within her institution and elsewhere. She does this only once. She has not done this before, and has no plans to do so again. The Cancer Letter considers this fair use.
Example 5
The Cancer Letter publishes a special issue or a special article that is open access. An administrator of a hospital that has an individual subscription wants to share the link widely, within the institution, and on social media. Since the story in question is open-access, this is appropriate. However, republication of the same content in the institution’s media would require permission.
Social Media
Links to all stories can be shared on social media. Portions of stories appearing in The Cancer Letter—outside the pay wall—are open-access. This content can be shared on social media.
If you have any questions, please contact copyright@cancerletter.com, or call us at 202-362-1809.
