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Copyright Information and Guidelines

This guide for the Bentley University community presents information on copyright and provides guidance in evaluating the use of copyrighted material in higher education and scholarship.

Copyright

Crews, K. (2012). Copyright law for librarians and educators: Creative strategies and practical solutions. Chicago: ALA. KF 2995.C74 2012
The advancement of innovative education, librarianship, and scholarship has become increasingly entangled with copyright law. Research and education seem to be routinely reinvented with the creation of new software and technological devices. Private agreements are becoming a dominant force on the shape of legal rights and responsibilities.
 
Lipinski, T. (2006). The complete copyright liability handbook for librarians and educators. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers, Inc. KF 3080.L57 2006
A comprehensive guidebook that covers copyright issues for Web sites, distance learning, circulating software, e-books, and more. It both explains and provides tools for managing institutional exposure for copyright risk-management and covers: direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement, immunity, damage remission, notice provisions, and more.
 
Russell, C. (2004). Complete copyright: An everyday guide for librarians. Chicago: American Library Association. KF 2995.C57 2004
This guide will help you to: Address complex copyright issues through the use of real-life library scenarios. Understand when permission is necessary when using copyrighted licenses. Keep up-to-date with recent copyright legislation including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization Act (TEACH). Recognize the benefits and the pitfalls of the new digital copyright law. Develop copyright presentations and workshops. Discuss copyright law and fair use with legislators, administrators, library boards, and other decision makers.
 
Talab, R. (1999). Commonsense copyright: A guide for educators and librarians, 2nd ed. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland and Company, Inc. REF KF 2994.T36 1999
This second edition presents information updated as of the end of 1998 regarding the Copyright Act as currently amended. Applicable to both general and specialized audiences, the book covers copyright as it applies to a variety of settings, with numerous usage examples and guideline charts, all presented in an easy-to-read format with the "legalese" reserved for the footnotes.

Creative Commons

Gordon-Murnane, L. (2010). Creative Commons: Copyright tools for the 21st century. Online. 34 (1), 18-21.
Copyright laws in the U.S. have been around since 1790, but two 20th-century revisions, coupled with the internet's fostering of a read/write culture, have had a significant impact on the use, reuse, and distribution of digital media and content in this century. They've also helped initiate a new category of copyright protection. It's called Creative Commons.
 
Valenza, J. (2011). Opening gates: On celebrating Creative Commons and flexing the fair use muscle. Library Media Connection. 30-32.
While teaching digital citizenship and respect for intellectual property, librarians can act as cheerleaders rather than gatekeepers. In many more cases, they can say "yes" to creativity by using media in teaching and learning. Librarians need to spread the gospel of Creative Commons, as a tool for student and teacher remixing and creation and as a licensing option for students' original creations. They also need to understand and share the "Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education" with the teaching community, the preservice education community, and their own library community. Their instruction needs to be based on local and realistic examples of what they see as fair use and what is clearly not fair use.

DMCA

Pike & Fischer, Inc. (2003). The Digital Millennium Copyright Act: Text, history, and caselaw. Pike & Fischer, Inc. REF KF 2994.D54 2003
Pike & Fischer presents a unique desk reference that covers the whole of the DMCA-the full text of the statute, its legislative history, ground-breaking caselaw, and more.

Fair Use

Aufderheide, P. & Jaszi, P. (2011). Reclaiming fair use: How to put balance back in copyright. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. KF 3020.A984 2011
Authors Aufderheide and Jaszi reveal that fair use remains a powerful tool for educators by clarifying much of the misunderstood notions regarding copyright law and what constitutes legal use of protected material. In revisiting the fair use doctrine contained in the original copyright law, scholars and educators can assert with reason and confidence that practical application of fair use can still be effective (and legal) in the digital age.
 
Crews, K. (2001). The law of fair use and the illusion of fair use guidelines. The Ohio State Law Journal, 62(2), 602-700.
This article analyzes the origins of guidelines, the various governmental documents and court rulings that reference the guidelines, and the substantive content of the guidelines themselves to demonstrate that in fact the guidelines bear little relationship, if any, to the law of fair use.
 
Crews, K. (1993). Copyright, fair use, and the challenge for universities. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Z 649.F35 C74 1993
In response to the confusion generated by the 1991 Basic Books vs. Kinkos fair use case, Crews offers a detailed explanation of copyright law and fair use. At the time a groundbreaking study, this book presents the results of a survey of 98 American research universities that assessed how the academic community at large interprets and implements copyright law. The author concludes that most universities adopt an overly cautious approach that only serves to undermine the fundamental purposes of scholarly research and instruction.
   
Gerhardt, D. & Wessel, M. (2010). Fair use and fairness on campus. North Carolina Journal of Law and Technology, 11(3), 461-530.
This article demonstrates why fair use is so critical to higher education, and seeks to clarify legal ambiguities of the law of fair use in order to better align this doctrine with critical educational goals.
 
Hobbs, R. (2010). Copyright clarity: How fair use supports digital learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin. LC 5803.C65 H63 2010
With a keen eye toward the future, Hobbs examines how fair use relates to digital learning and media literacy by presenting simple principles for applying copyright law to media resources for classroom use, and introduces current trends in copyright practices and policies to serve as additional guidance.
 
Neal, J. (2011). Fair use is not civil disobedience: Rethinking copyright wars and the role of the academic library. The Proceedings of the ACRL 2011 Conference, March 30 - April 2, 2011, Philadelphia, PA. Association of College and Research Libraries.
The academic library community has been at the center of the copyright wars, advancing the interests of students and faculty. Digital and network technologies, the licensing of electronic content, and the globalization of copyright have combined to challenge our traditional views of intellectual property. New laws and legislation over the past decade have threatened the sustenance of fair use and key exceptions to copyright. We must re-commit to the education of our campuses, to political advocacy, and to collective risk taking.
 
Ou, C. (2003). Technology and copyright issues in the academic library: First sale, fair use and the electronic document. portal: Libraries and the Academy, 3(1), 89-98.
First sale and fair use are two copyright principles of use in academic libraries that need to be reexamined in an information age offering the possibilities of universal access and perfect distribution in the electronic document.
 
Parchomovsky, G. & Weiser, P. (2011). Beyond fair useCornell Law Review. v. 96. 91-138.
To address the shortcomings of the fair use doctrine in the digital age, this article reconceives of the policy challenge and takes a fundamentally different tack. Rather than tinkering with the fair use doctrine, this article proposes the creation of a system of new user privileges that would supplement fair use.
 
Sundt, C. (2004). Fair use of images in the classroom: How far is fair? Presented in the session, Fair Use: Who Has the Rights?, College Art Association annual conference, Seattle, WA, February 2004.

Open Access

Cope, B. & Phillips, A., eds. (2009). The future of the academic journal. Oxford: Chandos Publishing. Z 286.S37 F887 2009
Examines current issues in journals publishing and look to how the industry will develop over the next few years. With contributions from leading academics and industry professionals, the book provides an authoritative and balanced view of this fast-changing area and features a discussion of Open Access initiatives and how OA may shape the future of journal publishing.
 
Darnton, R. (2009). The case for books: Past, present, and future. New York: Public Affairs. Z 116.A2 D37 2009
The era of the book as the unrivalled source and vehicle for knowledge is coming to an end. Digitization makes the physical properties of books disposable. This is the moment when books could both spring free of the limitations of production processes that have constrained them for 500 years and could also shatter into smithereens, shards of scattered knowledge no longer bound and made meaningful by context, cover and care.
 
Hall, G. (2008). Digitize this book! The politics of new media, or why we need open access now. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.  Z 286.O63 H35 2008
In the sciences, the merits and ramifications of open access—the electronic publishing model that gives readers free, irrevocable, worldwide, and perpetual access to research—have been vigorously debated. Open access is now increasingly proposed as a valid means of both disseminating knowledge and career advancement. Hall presents a timely and ambitious polemic on the potential that open access publishing has to transform both “papercentric” humanities scholarship and the institution of the university itself.
 
Joseph, H. (2012). The impact of open access on research and scholarship. College and Research Libraries News. 73 (2), 83-87.
Information is given about the Berlin 9 Open Access Conference, a three-day meeting in the U.S. The Berlin 9 meeting focused on open access publishing's significance in research, scientific productivity, innovation, and commercialization. Topics raised at the forum were incorporating the public access concept in national research policies, collaborating across research communities, and supporting the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities. 
 
Suber, P. (2011). Open Access and Copyright. SPARC Open Access Newsletter, 159. Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition.
From the beginning, OA struggled against the widespread assumption that it must violate copyright law.  But this has been a struggle against perception, not reality.  In fact, steering clear of infringement has always been easier than steering clear of this false assumption and the harm it has caused. There are bullet-proof methods for OA publishers and repositories to avoid copyright problems.  These methods are better known today than they were five years ago, but we still struggle against the same false assumption, the same fear, the same skittishness, the same needless capitulation, and the same dishonesty.  Here's an attempt to clarify the situation in a dozen propositions.
 
Willinsky, J. (2006). The access principle: The case for open access to research and scholarship. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Z 286.O63 W55 2006
Highlighting online open access publishing by scholarly journals, the author makes a case for open access as a public good. A commitment to scholarly work carries with it a responsibility to circulate that work as widely as possible: this is the access principle. In the digital age, that responsibility includes exploring new publishing technologies and economic models to improve access to scholarly work. Wide circulation adds value to published work; it is a significant aspect of its claim to be knowledge. The right to know and the right to be known are inextricably mixed.

Public Domain

Donovan, T. & Hirtle, P. (2009). Removing all restrictions: Cornell's new policy on use of public domain reproductions. Research Library Issues (ARL), (266), 1-6.
With significant collections of public domain materials in their collections, research libraries are faced with the question of what restrictions, if any, to place on those who seek to scan or otherwise reproduce these resources with the intention of publication. An interview with Peter Hirtle, Cornell University Library's Senior Policy Advisor, provides some insight into Cornell's decision to change their "text and image use" permissions guidelines.
 
Fishman, S. (2006). The public domain: How to find and use copyright-free writings, music, art and more. Berkeley, CA: NOLO. REF KF 3022.Z9 F57 2006
The author provides a thorough treatment of public domain and how it relates to text, music, art, photography, film and television, and information technology, as well as how to locate and use these public domain works, with a significant discussion of the pitfalls and implications of copyright law by highlighting recent court decisions.

 

TEACH Act

American Library Association. (2001). Highlights of the TEACH Act. Distance Education Workshop, August 28-29, 2001.
This document provides a concise overview of the relevant changes to copyright law introduced in the TEACH Act, arranged in an easy to understand table.  
 
Crews, K. (2010). New copyright law for distance education: The meaning and importance of the TEACH Act. Copyright Advisory Office, Columbia University.
This paper principally summarizes the new standards and requirements established by the TEACH Act and suggests strategies and implementation methods that an educational institution may choose to follow.