Interlibrary loan guidelines are the most authoritative guidelines for copyright law. The guidelines state that each year a borrowing library may make five requests from a periodical title going back five years. If a title is owned but missing or is on order, the request does not fall into the terms for five requests per title. If the item is a non-periodical the terms are five requests during the entire terms of copyright. Borrowing libraries must maintain records for three calendar years.
ILL guidelines take no position on materials older than five years.
Copyright law does make provisions for consortia, but borrowing must follow ILL guidelines. As a nonprofit corporation the Copyright Clearance Center collects royalties for excesses in fair use copying and distributes royalties back to the publishers. Member publishers establish a per page royalty. The CCC does not set rates nor is it a document delivery service. Computer programs Generally the owner of a copy of a program may make another copy or adaptation in two instances.