Copyright & Fair Use

Librarians et al have been waiting to see what would happen with the copyright case at Georgia State University for about 2 years now. Yesterday, Judge Orinda Evans satisfied our curiosity on most counts. You can read one hot-off-the-press account from frontline observer, Duke’s Kevin Smith, here. (For a useful timeline of the case, see this compilation from Educause.) As Smith implies in his summary, the specific decisions will create lots of  buzz in coming days and weeks.

The Center for Social Media’s latest Fair Use Question of the Month will perk up librarians and archivists but certainly other entities that find themselves wanting to share historical info and objects online as well.  The explanation includes a nice plug for transformativeness, a central concept in fair use.

Another group adds a helpful document to the best practices collection. This one wrestles with something that many classroom faculty and librarians frequently have questions about. Take a look at the freshly-posted American Library Association Video Roundtable‘s “Fair Use and Video: Community Practices in the Fair Use of Video in Libraries.”

The  recent event at Columbia U., “Standards & Strategies for Fair Use Decisions Inside Libraries & Universities” was excellent and well attended. Much talk about the new Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries ensued. Here is a likewise excellent summary. Therein, ARL‘s Brandon Butler is quoted as saying, “The goal of this document, in some sense, is to make risk management rational, to take some of the fear out and put a real understanding of how fair use can reduce the risk involved in projects.”

We cannot emphasize enough what an important and useful document this Code is, and we encourage you to read it, use it, share it as much as possible. It is not just for use by librarians – it’s useful to every member of an academic community. In an ideal world, content users will not simply ask librarians, “Can I do this?” but will, instead, learn about the concept of fair use, thereby empowering themselves to be able to make rational decisions at those inevitable and frequent moments of uncertainty. And please don’t forget about our committee’s resource, too, where we invite you to share your questions and concerns.

Speaking of educating (see previous post), here’s one chance to help promote copyright education. The U.S. Copyright Office provides the opportunity via a very short survey. Be honest, and really try not to look up the answer to #1 on Wikipedia.

There are so many “teachable moments” where faculty or staff can begin to talk about copyright and fair use with students, whether it’s using visual resources from the internet in a class assignment, how and why to cite sources, sharing class readings with classmates or some other scenario. While copyright notices are always posted at photocopy machines, scanners and within electronic reserve pages, many students probably do not read or think much about them. The Library of Congress is making an effort, but here at CUNY how do you reach out to your students to educate them on the importance of understanding the terms of fair use? Please share your stories and/or suggestions by commenting here or by contacting the copyright committee.

Columbia U. is hosting this free event on March 27: “Standards & Strategies for Fair Use Decisions inside Libraries & Universities.” More details to appear on the site soon, but save the morning – this is a good one!  It’s got our friends Brandon Butler and Peter Jaszi who have been touted on this blog previously and a few others as well.  While you’re on the Columbia web site, poke around at the great resources the Copyright Advisory Office has to offer.

This short video is a wonderful introduction to the use of Creative Commons licenses including a clear and simple explanation of copyright. This could be a useful resource for faculty to share with students when discussing both plagiarism and creating content – ideally dissuading against the former and promoting the latter!

The Center for Social Media has issued the most recent Fair Use Question of the Month. This one relates to using copyrighted material on Blackboard sites. It takes a critical look at the widely-touted “four factors” checklist for making fair use decisions on a case-by-case basis. It’s a good question that is likely relevant to many CUNY faculty.

It’s here! The Association of Research Libraries Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries. Librarians are especially pleased about this, but it’s good news for everyone. Remember: Work that fair use muscle, or lose it.  Check out ARL’s YouTube channel and this recent Fair Use FAQ for librarians. And here’s the Chronicle of Higher Ed‘s take on the new code.

Others codes of best practices for fair use can be found at the Center for Social Media.