This is not necessarily a newsy item, but it might be news to you. If you are a dissertation or book author (or hope to be one) this Q&A about using photographs in books will answer many of your anxiety-provoking questions. Guidance is courtesy of the ever-helpful and knowledgeable Kenneth Crews, director of Columbia University’s Copyright Advisory Office. Here’s to a creative and productive 2012!

January 1, 2012 was not only the day that you may have turned over a new leaf, but it was also the day (as it is each year) that the Center for Study of the Public Domain and Communia celebrated Public Domain Day. Based on the life-plus-seventy-years protection term, some of the creators whose unpublished works may* now be in the public domain include James Joyce, Virginia Woolf and Jelly Roll Morton.

For more info on copyright terms, see this helpful chart from Cornell U.

* Exceptions do exist. See disclaimer.

Another fair use code of best practices has been added to the growing list. This one, developed by the Visual Resources Association, should be of particular use to academic community members who deal with images – art faculty, librarians, dissertation writers, etc. For links to more codes, such as those for documentary filmmakers, poetry, media literacy education, online video, etc., see the Center for Social Media’s suite.

Watch video of “Copyright & Fair Use @ CUNY” that took place at BMCC on April 8, 2011. Speakers: Peter Jaszi, Brandon Butler, Rhonda Johnson, and Jim Lengel. Co-sponsored by Office of Library Services and Library Association of CUNY. (Must have iTunes to view)

(This presentation is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License)

Welcome to the Copyright & Fair Use blog at CUNY Academic Commons. This is a companion site to the (C)opyright @ CUNY web resource in the CUNY Office of Library Services. That site is developed and maintained by a cross-CUNY committee assembled by the University Dean for Libraries and Information Resources. The committee also has a contact page where you can send in questions so that we might better get a sense of the community’s issues and concerns related to copyright. In this Commons space we will post relevant news about copyright and fair use generated both from within CUNY and from the world outside. So please bookmark us, subscribe to the feed, and send us your comments and news tips. We look forward to engaging with you on these vital topics.