New Copyright Booklet
A new booklet on copyright issues for colleges and universities is now available at no charge -- Campus Copyright Rights and Responsibilities: A Basic Guide to Policy Considerations (PDF format).
A new booklet on copyright issues for colleges and universities is now available at no charge -- Campus Copyright Rights and Responsibilities: A Basic Guide to Policy Considerations (PDF format).
"An online database that enables people to search copyright-renewal records for books published in the United States between 1923 and 1963 has been launched by Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources (SULAIR)."
Complete press release - http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2007/april4/copy-040407.html
Copyright Renewal Database - http://collections.stanford.edu/determinator/
A selective guide to web resources on the topic of copyright appeared recently in College and Research Libraries News. According to the author, "the resources presented here offer librarians, educators, and other information professionals a wide range of information on copyright from the introductory, to the practical, to the philosophical."
The article is available from the journal's website.
The Center for Intellectual Property at the University of Maryland has announced its 2007-08 schedule of asynchronous online workshops. The first workshop, Copyright and Academic Culture: New Issues and Developments, will be held from Oct. 1-12 and will be moderated by Siva Vaidhyanathan, PhD, Associate Professor of Media Studies and Law, University of Virginia. The deadline for registration is Sept. 28. For a complete list of upcoming workshops along with registration information, visit the Center’s web site.
From the press release dated Dec. 12, 2007 .....
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has released a white paper, "Educational Fair Use Today," by Jonathan Band, JD. Band discusses three recent appellate decisions concerning fair use that should give educators and librarians greater confidence and guidance for asserting this important privilege.
In all three decisions discussed in the paper, the courts permitted extensive copying and display in the commercial context because the uses involved repurposing and recontextualization. The reasoning of these opinions could have far-reaching implications in the educational environment.
The paper is freely available for download from the ARL Web site at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/educationalfairusetoday.pdf.
Last month Google announced that it had settled the lawsuits brought by the Author’s Guild and the Association of American Publishers over its book-scanning project. A U.S. District Judge has given preliminary approval of the settlement which is now scheduled for a hearing next June.
The lawsuits claimed that Google’s mass digitization of works in major U.S. research libraries infringed upon the copyrights of authors and publishers. Terms of the settlement include payment of $125-million by Google to set up a Books Rights Registry, pay authors and publishers for scanning of any copyrighted work, and provide for legal costs. The settlement would apply to works registered with the U.S. Copyright Office and scanned by Google before January 5, 2009. Google plans to continue scanning books in the public domain and copyrighted out-of-print books. The Registry will be run by representatives of authors and publishers and will make payments to rightsholders.
The deal also provides rules regarding how much of the full-text Google can allow users to see. Users at U.S. public and university libraries will be able to freely search and preview portions of works online. In many cases, individual users will be able to purchase online full-text access. Institutions will be offered a subscription service to allow their users access to the complete text. Details regarding the prices for these services are not yet available.
The 200+ page settlement is complex and generating reaction and comments from copyright experts, librarians, publishers and scholarly groups. But, if approved, the deal could potentially make many more out-of-print works available to U.S. readers while benefiting the rightsholders through compensation.
Related Links:
Complete Settlement with Attachments
Joint Public FAQ
Chronicle of Higher Education Article, 10/29/2008
A Guide for the Perplexed: Libraries and the Google Library Project Settlement
Peter Suber’s Open Access News
The University of Virginia Faculty Senate discussed a draft resolution on open access to scholarship at their September 23rd meeting with the intention that senators vote on it in November. The resolution was presented by the senate's Task Force on Scholarly Publication and Authors' Rights, represented by Edmund Kitch, a law professor, and committee chair Brian Pusser, a professor at the Curry School of Education.
As reported by UVa Today on September 28th,
"Under the proposed resolution, U.Va. faculty members would assign to the rector and Board of Visitors "a nonexclusive, irrevocable, non-commercial global license to exercise any and all rights under copyright relating to each of her or his scholarly articles, in any medium, and to authorize others to do the same, provided the articles are not sold for profit."
The policy would apply to all scholarly articles written by faculty members while at U.Va., except pieces that were written before the policy is adopted and remain under "incompatible" licensing agreements. All other articles would be turned over to the provost's office in electronic form and made generally available no sooner than 12 months after their journal publication.
"Scholarship is done for the benefit of mankind and it should be accessible to everyone," Kitch said.
There are many avenues for disseminating scholarly work, particularly with the Internet, he said. Authors should be aware of their rights, which they often sign away to the publisher. Because of this, he said, many authors have no right to post their material on the Internet.
Authors should be aware of the rights they have to their works, he said, and should specify, as an example, that they want the rights to revert to them when the material goes out of print.
"Raise questions with your publisher," he said.
Madelyn Wessel, special adviser to the University librarian and a member of the task force, said the current resolution is based on a similar policy at Harvard University.
She said there is great potential to put scholarly work on the Internet and also urged faculty authors to negotiate with their publishers."
For more information on authors' rights, see the VCU Libraries' Copyright and Authors Rights guide to resources, specifically the "Author's Rights" section.
This page contains an archive of all entries posted to Scholarly Communications News in the Copyright category. They are listed from oldest to newest.
Conferences is the previous category.
Journal pricing is the next category.
Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.