Re: [Foundation-l] new survey of digital collection copyrights

Relevant to the NPG et al discussion: "Unless Otherwise Indicated: A Survey of Copyright Statements on Digital Library Collections", by Melanie Schlosser. published in "College and Research Libraries", v.70(4), pp371-385 (July 2009). -------- Unfortunately it's not freely available online, but if you have access to a good university library you should be able to get it. Here's the abstract and some excerpts: Abstract: "This study examines the copyright statements attached to digital collections created by members of the Digital Library Federation. A total of 786 collections at twenty-nine institutions were examined for the presence of statements and their content evaluated for common themes. Particular attention was paid to whether the institutions in question are meeting their obligation to educate users about their rights by including information about fair use and the public domain. Approximately half the collections surveyed had copyright statements, and those statements were often difficult to distinguish from terms of use and were frequently vague or misleading." -------- Snippets of interest to our discussions: Of the collections examined, 41% consisted entirely of public domain items; 51% of these had a copyright statement, but only 10% of the institutions mentioned public domain implicitly or explicitly in their statement. 86%, however, mentioned personal or educational use (which is not relevant to public domain items). Of the collections of copyrighted items, 48% had some sort of statement; 8% mentioned fair use explicitly while 53% mentioned personal or educational use. In general, the copyright status of a collection did not affect whether or not a copyright statement was present -- only half of the collections had statements overall, and no institution was consistent in its labeling. And: "Quite a few public domain and mixed [copyright status] collections had Creative Commons licenses or specific or vague ownership statements, implying that the contents are copyrighted in some way. It was especially common for statements to acknowledge that the institution does not hold the copyright to the original item (either because it had passed into the public domain or because the copyright was held by a third party) but to assert copyright over the digital image." Schlosser notes that "The definition of a 'copyright statement' used by this study was somewhat arbitrary. Many of the statements examined were buried in collection descriptions or looked more like terms of use statements than copyright statements." She concludes that "It seems unlikely that libraries are purposely deceiving users with false or misleading claims of copyright ownership (copyfraud). However, this study presents evidence that, far from educating users about copyright or promoting the public domain, many libraries engaged in digitization projects are omitting a key tool for copyright education or using it in ways that undermine users’ needs for accurate copyright information. Once again, it is outside the scope of this paper to examine the reasons. It is possible that working knowledge of copyright law in many libraries is not sufficient for grappling with the complexities involved or that the issue has simply slipped through the cracks as libraries embark on difficult and resource-intensive digitization projects." Note this article is U.S. institution and law-centric, but gives some nice background on copyright changes and the actions and position of libraries. As Schlosser says, "While users push for more content and functionality at less cost, and copyright holders demand greater technological and legal protection for their works, libraries are often caught in the middle." -- phoebe _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l