In order to protect the intellectual property rights of electronic resources, and to ensure the legitimate rights by SUSTech staff and students to use these resources, and also to uphold the reputation of Southern University of Science and Technology, the following regulations are formulated with which all users are duly asked to comply.

1. The staff and students of SUSTech should comply with laws, regulations and school policies when they use the library's electronic resources, and should follow the principle of fair use.

2. Electronic resources refer to online official publications, which include databases, electronic journals, electronic books and multimedia resources published by domestic or foreign publishers. These resources are acquired for trial use, or purchased by the SUSTech Library, or authorized to the SUSTech Library for use without charge.

3. Fair use means that electronic resources of the library are only for the purpose of learning, teaching and scientific research by SUSTech staff and students.

4. Any of the following is strictly prohibited when SUSTech staff and students use the library electronic resources:

(1) Batch downloading of the library electronic resources by any software tools;

(2) Downloading multiple full-text documents in the same database continuously in a short period of time with abnormal reading speed; Downloading full-text documents of the periodicals for a whole volume or a whole issue;

(3) Setting up a proxy server, or providing VPN accounts to non-SUSTech users to access library electronic resources;

(4) Providing agent services or document delivery in large amount to unauthorized users without the prior permission of the library.

5. Violation of fair use of electronic resources will cause part of IP blocked, affecting the normal use of many users. It is highly possible that such violations may lead to legal litigations.

6. If there is any violation of the above rules, the library will form an investigation team together with Network Center and other departments of the university concerned, and violators will be punished in the way as specified below:

(1) Notify the department where the violator is in ;

(2) Violators are required to submit a written self-criticism to the library and delete the downloaded data and documents;

(3) The library will publish a news release detailing the wrong doings of the violator on the library website;

(4) The violators' borrowing privilege will be suspended for a period from one month to six months, depending on how serious the wrong doing is. If violators do not stop the wrong behavior even when they have been warned and punished, their borrowing privilege will be permanently deprived. For the same user, the first violation will lead to 1-month suspension of borrowing privilege; the second violation will lead to 6-month suspension of borrowing privilege; the third violation will lead to borrowing privilege being permanently deprived.

(5) Economic losses of the university caused by the violation shall be compensated by the violator.

(6) It is the sole responsibility of the violator when intellectual property disputes arise due to his or her behavior.