Breakout session: Copyright and digital rights managementThis is a featured page

Host: Jill Hurst-Wahl
Scribe: Maureen Southorn

During the session, participants ssaid the following (which we placed into categories):

In general:
  • Intellectual property, copyright, and digital rights management: an odd mix? (Each is important and could be a session in itself.)
  • We have been quick to give up or fair use rights.
  • Copyright needs to be turned on its head.
  • Resources are scarce. Fair use once helped us get valuable resources into kids' hands... What now?

How do we tell our patrons how to use materials?
  • Our users are fairly clueless about what they should and shouldn't be doing with items they check out. We are seeing these gigantic violations, since our users are more concerned with distributing everything as much as possible.
  • Creative Commons is so great this way. It's easy to understand, to see right away how things can be used. Flickr has integrated this very nicely into its application.
  • There are a lot of people moving toward a model where they try to retain rights to their own publications, not to just "sign away" their copyright upon submission to an academic journal.
  • International standards: no one is going backgrounds. Most are limiting use more.
  • When developing the collection, we should try to acquire items from the public domain. This is difficult under current copyright law, since copyright is "automatic".
  • We need to tell users what is not legal, yet help them take advantage of what they can't. Less of the we're going to get sued... but more of this is what fair use is, and this is how you can do what you need without breaking copyright law.
  • I wonder what kind of legal precedents are getting set during the recent writers' strikes about the distributors (who are making money for releasing works) vs. the authors, who actually created the works and are not getting a cut of the earnings.
  • Another case: indigenous tribes vs. drug companies who are licensing recipes, medical remedies, etc that were in the group's public domain.
  • We've just started an assessment where we'll have incoming students read about fair use and answer a few questions to see if they understand what they should and should not be doing.
  • DRM is often included with a software package, eg a CD doesn't permit you to copy it. U of Buffalo has a condition of use statement on their digital collections, telling users exactly what they can do
  • Faculty have a very liberal idea of what is fair use. it's for education, they say. they are indignant at the need to ask for permission to use things. We're trying to get the faculty on board to know, understand, and follow the fair use guidelines.

On our responsibility
  • Until you have reason to think a violation is happening, then you are not liable. if you become aware of violation occuring, then the liability increases. we can put up all the notices we want about not duplicating a full work, etc by fax and copy machines, but our institutions don't have this get out of jail free card.

Organizations have gotten scared
  • I can recall an example where Kinkos refused to copy a famous artwork that was in my arts education thesis. That seemed to me like an educational use, plus the works were in public domain. Kinkos _has_ been sued before.
  • I've had webmasters refuse to post pictures b/c of this worry.

Takeaways:
  • Authors need to have an awareness of what they're signing away when a publisher or distributor acquires "rights" to a work.
  • Libraries must fully understand the implications of fair use, and work to teach fair use practices to the community, particularly in an academic setting.
  • The implications of fair use and plagiarism issues are very complex in a society where culture encourages collaboration and sharing. We must work to educate users on the many facets of these issues.
  • We really want, as librarians, to focus on the content and providing access to our users. Instead, we are focusing on the container, with all the issues that constrain access.
  • With the development of Creative Commons and retainment of individual publication rights, perhaps we will move to a model where authors/artists can truly govern access to and use of their works.


jahurst
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