1. Elisabeth M. Long Digital Library Development Center University of Chicago Library elong @ uchicago.edu CreativeCommons.org: Publishing in the Digital Age The Library and Copyright

2. Why now?  Past technologies:  Limited/localized distribution  Reproduction process slow  Clunky interfaces  Digital technology:  Global distribution  Ease of reproduction  Enhanced functionality

3. Copyright and Libraries  Materials we want to use  How do we know if it is under copyright?  Well if it was published in 1938 and it doesn’t have a copyright statement then it is in the public domain, but if it did have a copyright statement it may be under copyright, but if and only if the copyright was renewed 28 years later, and this is assuming that the book in question was published in the United States……  What rights can we exercise?  What barriers prevent us?  Materials that we produce  What rights should we claim?  How can we effectively disseminate?

4. Materials We Want to Use  Make available for research and teaching  E-reserve  Licensed material  Course management systems  Convert for better accessibility/functionality  e.g. web distribution, full-text searching  Archive and preserve  Print materials  Ephemeral, born-digital materials

5. Archiving Born-digital Materials  Government documents  Here today, gone tomorrow  Copyright status of independent contractor- produced material on websites  Grey literature  Reports, conference proceedings, pre-prints, technical specs and standards, etc.  Corporate Web sites  Academic Web sites  Faculty papers and lectures

6. What are the Problems?  Investigation procedure: long and costly  Law is complex  Low response rates, inconclusive results  Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act  Protect Mickey Mouse!  Annual passage of materials into the public domain frozen until 2018  Law since 1989: works copyrighted by default

7. Copyright By Default…  Balance tipped towards restrictiveness  Intent does not equal law  Author’s apparent non-enforcement does not give us explicit rights  Who is copyright holder?  Without notice – hard to tell  What year did copyright begin?  Web publications often have only a current date stamp – no indication of original publication date

8. Where Does This Leave Us?  Can’t collect materials we would have in print  Collecting web-based ‘born-digital’ materials requires copying  Copyright restrictions make us hesitant to archive  Dark archive not acceptable solution  These problems will increase exponentially for the librarian of the future

9. Materials We Produce  Digitized collections  Web pages  Databases  Software  Metadata

10. Our Responsibilities  We are They  We create the problems just described if we don’t think about our role as content producers  Balance our interests  Protect our rights but….  Freely disseminate information  Consider the legacy we will leave

11. What To Do?

15.  Advocacy and Communication  Within Library  Within University or other Organization  Political Activism  CreativeCommons-type solutions  Reversing the trend towards restrictiveness  Don’t leave the librarian of the future in the same situation we are in now

16. Elisabeth M. Long University of Chicago Library Co-director, Digital Library Development Center elong @ uchicago.edu Don’t leave the librarian of the future with the same challenges we face now Slides available at: http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/dldc/talks/2004/aall-creativecommons/