- About CTLibrary.com
- Getting Started
- Account Maintenance
- Technical Questions/Troubleshooting
- Reprint Rights
- Legal Guidelines for Use

- What are CTLibrary.com's reprint rights?
Can I use CTLibrary.com content in print formats?
Can I use CTLibrary.com content online?
Can I copy and pass out articles from CTLibrary.com? Say, in a newsletter?
Can I print content and file it in my personal collection?
Can I import CTLibrary.com content onto my computer?
Can I quote portions of articles from CTLibrary.com in articles or books?
- How do you know whether your use of an excerpt is a permissible "fair use"?
- Who can I call if I need help?

Articles and other material in CTLibrary are copyrighted and may not be used for commercial purposes. Other legal matters: "All rights reserved. Except for personal use, no content from CTLibrary.com may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic or electronic process, or in the form of an audio recording, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise copied for public or private use without written permission of the publisher."

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We're happy for you to use CTLibrary.com material in various noncommercial print forms, provided you follow these guidelines, which look like a lot but are actually quite simple:

1. The article is original to a Christianity Today International publication-not reprinted from a non-CTI periodical, book, or other source.
   1. if the article is reprinted from a non-CTI source, it will include a credit line indicating that, and in most cases, the words "Used by permission." In those cases, please contact the non-CTI source directly.
   2. If you're not sure whether the article is from a CTI or non-CTI source, please contact CustomerCare@CTLibrary.com.
2. The article is being used in a local congregation or classroom.
3. Fewer than 1,000 copies are distributed.
4. The material is distributed free of charge.
5. Each copy includes an appropriate credit line, such as: "This article first appeared in (insert date) issue of (insert magazine name). Used by permission of Christianity Today International. http://CTLibrary.com."

For any other use, advance permission must be obtained from the author. To obtain the author's address, please use the following e-mails:

Christianity Today: letters@ChristianityToday.com
Books & Culture:bceditor@BooksAndCulture.com
Christian History & Biography:cheditor@ChristianHistory.net
Leadership journal and books:ljeditor@leadershipjournal.net

Or write:

CTLibrary 465 Gundersen Drive Carol Stream, IL 60188

Fax: 630-260-0114

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Sorry, but we're not able to grant permission for our articles to appear on a non-CTI online site.

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CTLibrary.com is designed to be used in your work of research, preaching, teaching, writing, and more. We encourage you to freely use the material in noncommercial ways. That said, we ask you to follow the guidelines found above under "Using CTLibrary.com Articles in Print" section.

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Yes, you may make one copy of an article for noncommercial research purposes.

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Not a significant portion of CTLibrary.com, no. (Significant is defined as any amount greater than 5 percent of the whole.) But you can import a small number of articles that you're currently using for noncommercial research purposes. Quickly importing large amounts of content may be difficult, however, since CTLibrary.com was not designed to provide articles in a data format that is useful for other databases. According to others who've contacted us with the same question, you'll probably have to use your computer's save-as function or copy and paste functions to copy an article into your database.

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If the use is noncommercial, please see our guidelines.

For commercial uses, you may often be able to quote a brief portion of an article, but to give a clearer answer, we need to explain a little background on U.S. copyright law. Copyright laws do great things: they protect the integrity of intellectual property, protect the creator's right to control the usage of that property, and protect the creator's right to profit from that property.

Having said that, U.S. copyright law also recognizes important exceptions to copyright protection that allow others to make "fair use" of intellectual material they didn't create. For instance, if you want to satirize somebody, you're allowed to base your satire on the original work. Criticism of a work necessarily means you must refer to the original work in whole, or in part.

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The U.S. Copyright Law provides no definitive answer to this question but rather provides 4 criteria that can be used as a defense against the claim of copyright infringement:

1. "The purpose and character of the use" Because a sermon is considered an educational use, and is not generally charged for, this factor generally weighs in favor of sermonic use.
   
   
2. "The nature of the copyrighted work" The law particularly frowns upon excerpting highly valuable works, such as music lyrics, unpublished memoirs, images, etc. So preachers should carefully limit their use of any such works.
   
   
3. "The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole.s" It is unfair to a copyright creator, and illegal, to use a great deal of the work, or the central part of the work, without obtaining permission for, and paying for, that use. For this reason, we won't distribute (without gaining and paying for written permission) Reader's Digest's "Laugh Lines" or "All in a Day's Work" (or similar material) because any portion we could use would be too substantial a portion of the original.
   
   
4. "The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." If people who hear this illustration could thus not have to buy the entire magazine article or book, this would weigh against the use. In most sermons, however, reading a short excerpt from a book does not negatively affect the marketability of the book.
   
   

To read more about copyright law, see:

• United States Copyright Office
  
  
• When Copying Is Ok -- The 'Fair Use' Rule
  
  
• Cyberspace Copyright: Fair Use
  
  

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If you are experiencing difficulty, you can reach Customer Care by e-mail at CustomerCare@CTLibrary.com or by phone at (877) 247-4787 by phone. Please keep in mind that our Customer Care representative is only in the office from 8-4:30 CST, Monday through Friday, and that your request will be answered as soon as possible and in the order it was received.

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