Copyright Resources and Current Issues

The title to this page is tangential to my purpose, which is to use it as an index of copyright topics. The UT pages, assembled by Georgia Harper, are some of the better and more practical pages on copyright for the US academic community, so I use them often and recommend them to others in all my classes. This page is a great succinct list of practical topics for any academic.

Even if you can't ask a UT lawyer, you certainly can use the pages to find many answers to copyright questions.

The topic list:

CONFU
Copyright on the Internet
Coursepacks
Distance Learning
FAQ
Guidelines
Interlibrary Loan
Images
Libel
Library
Licensing
Multimedia
Permission
Cprt. Policy
Privacy/Publicity
Registering Copyright
Reserves
Software

http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/IntellectualProperty/asklaw.htm

Posted by Lorre Smith at 09:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Produced by Washington State University this rather eclectic list has some real gems - well worth investigating. Although the page lacks update information so that it's impossible to tell how fresh the links are, it seems to be well maintained at this point.

It not only lists public domain text sites, but also images and music.

http://publishing.wsu.edu/copyright/pd_resources.html

Posted by Lorre Smith at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mr. Bell has devised a very good illustration of the growth and duration of copyright since 1790.

This chart may be used thus wise:
(C) 1999-2002 Tom W. Bell. All rights reserved. Fully attributed noncommercial use of this document permitted if accompanied by this paragraph.

http://www.tomwbell.com/writings/(C)_Term.html

Posted by Lorre Smith at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the Dalhousie Journal of Information and Management, this article bears an interesting perspective on copyright issues.

Here's the outline:
Introduction
Copyfight
Creative commons
Viability of open licenses
Copyfight in the developing world
Conclusion

http://djim.management.dal.ca/issues/issue3_1/hare/index.htm

Posted by Lorre Smith at 10:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since I teach a session for scholarly authors regarding negotiating copyright with publishers, I find and collect forms such as these.

I like this MIT one for its brief instructions on the first page, helping authors just that much more.

I especially appreciate this clause:

a. The Author shall, without limitation, have the non-exclusive right to use, reproduce, distribute, create derivative works including update, perform, and display publicly, the Article in electronic, digital or print form in connection with the Author’s teaching, conference presentations, lectures, other scholarly works, and for all of Author’s academic and professional activities.

because scholarly authors seldom realize they are giving away these rights when they sign fully copyright over to the publisher.

http://libraries.mit.edu/about/scholarly/copyright-form.html

Posted by Lorre Smith at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Columbia Law School Professor, writer for several popular magazines, and general thoughtful scholar Tim Wu provides useful perspective on copyright issues.

Many gems regarding copyright can be found in this list:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=159088

Posted by Lorre Smith at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)