COPYRIGHT AND FAIR USE:
Information for Authors and Learned Societies
The American Council of Learned Societies unequivocally endorses the principle of "fair use" for scholarly review, criticism, and discussion. It urges individual scholars to inform themselves on the principles of fair use, which are incorporated into the new copyright law, and to exercise this right in the pursuit of their scholarly work. The right of fair use is central to scholarship and the scholarly community and it should be embraced boldly. The ACLS recognizes that the exercise of fair use rights is the responsibility of the author: no publisher, editor, university, learned society, museum, or library can exercise this right for the scholar. The ACLS also notes, however, that these institutions should provide good guidance that supports the scholar and does not impede scholarly work with unnecessary and excessive permissions requests and fees.
This page is an outcome of the session on copyright and fair use held at the ACLS Annual Meeting in Philadelphia (May 8-10, 2003). The session was led by Eileen Gardiner and Ronald G. Musto, Directors, and Linda Zerella, Title Development Editor, of HEB. It was attended by ACLS board members, staff, and by CAO’s and delegates of ACLS constituent societies. The attendees emerged from that meeting with a call for further advice and information concerning the increasingly ambiguous and problematic status of these areas. HEB therefore provides the following page of hyperlinks to important groups, information sources and individual articles published online. This is the first version of a page that will continue to expand and be updated with accurate, reliable, and important information on these issues.
We have grouped these links according to several general themes outlined in the Philadelphia session. As we stressed at that meeting, the materials here are meant not as prescriptive guides to policy or practice, but as descriptive of useful and important issues that derive from the experience of HEB. The materials assembled here are also not meant to supplant the advice offered by publishers to authors or by copyright attorneys and other experts.
The ACLS does note, however, that the exercise of fair use within the U.S. Copyright Act is the responsibility of the individual scholar: no publisher, editor, university or library can exercise this right for you. We also hope that authors, especially younger scholars, will benefit from the experience and very specific legal decisions reflected in these materials and take a very careful look at the copyright and fair use issues involved in planning, assembling, and completing their work for the scholarly public.
Since this page is a work in progress, we would also urge scholars, legal experts, learned societies, journals and book publishers who are affected by these issues to contact us with further information on sites, groups, books, and articles, and with their questions and concerns.
To add online sites or information on copyright issues, please contact: Collections Development.
I. General Information
The website of the Library of Congress. Information and downloads available of the U. S. Copyright Act.
http://www.loc.gov/copyright
A crash course in copyright from the University of Texas.
http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/cprtindx.htm#top
The U. S. Copyright Act from Cornell Law School.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/
The website of the Copyright Society of the USA.
http://www.csusa.org
The website of Franklin Pierce Law Center with basic information on copyright on the Internet.
http://www.fplc.edu/tfield/copynet.htm
Copyright resources online.
http://www.library.yale.edu/~okerson/copyproj.html
The website of Find Law, an Internet legal resources index.
http://www.findlaw.com/
II. Copyright and Fair Use
Fair use as defined in Section 107 of the Copyright Act of the U. S. Constitution.
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
Copyright information and fair use from Stanford University Libraries.
http://fairuse.stanford.edu
Fair use of copyright works with a pamphlet download.
http://www.cetus.org/fairindex.html
Scholarly Electronic Publishing and fair use.
http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/l-schpub.htm
A site for consumers with information on protecting fair-use rights.
http://www.digitalconsumer.org/
The website of the Center for the Public Domain.
http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/
A site to help bridge the world of copyright and public domain, both domestic and international, and facilitate the availability of cultural and creative materials by using innovative licenses.
http://creativecommons.org
The Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, DC. A public research center focusing on civil liberty issues to protect privacy, 1st Amendment rights, and constitutional values.
http://epic.org
A joint project concerned with the protection of 1st Amendment rights for online activities.
http://www.chillingeffects.org/copyright
The home page of Professor James Boyle, Duke Law School, one of the founders of the Center for the Public Domain and Creative Commons. An excellent, informative site with links to public domain and copyright issues, forums, journals, articles and papers, and other sources for the public, student and scholar.
http://james-boyle.com/
The Chronicle of Higher Education: “Copyright Office Sides with Publishers”
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i24/24a03901.htm
The United States Copyright Office releases recommendations and a report on use of orphaned works.
The Chronicle of Higher Education: “Whose Work Is It, Anyway?”
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v51/i47/47a03301.htm
Orphan-works use by scholars, archivists, and librarians at odds with the artistic community.
College Art Association: Orphan Copyright Update
http://www.collegeart.org/advocacy/000117/
The CAA advocates legislative change in copyright law for orphan works.
The Association of American University Presses
http://aaupnet.org/programs/publications/exchange/index.html
An article from the Fall 2005 issue on fair use.
III. Legislation and Legal Issues
The 1998 Digital Millinenium Copyright Act and related articles.
http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/band.html
http://www.educause.edu/issues/dmca.html
http://www.educause.edu/asp/doclib/subjectdocs.asp?TermID=254
The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 and related information.
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/SonnyBonoCopyrightTermExtensionAct
http://www.keytlaw.com/Copyrights/sonybono.htm
The website of Eric Eldred, who argued against the DMCA and the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act within, in the 2002 Supreme Court case, Eldred v. Ashcroft.
http://eldred.cc/
VI. Miscellaneous Articles and Online Information
“Copyright: It's for the Public Good” by Peter Givler; an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v49/i35/35b02001.htm
Public Domain: Law and Contemporary Problems, Volume 66 (Winter/Spring 2003), Numbers 1 & 2 “The Public Domain” by James Boyle.
http://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/
The American Communication Association site with information and a collection of materials on communication law and First Amendment issues, resources for teaching and research, and reference resource pages for scholars and activists.
http://www.americancomm.org/
IFLA/IPA Joint Press Release: International Publishers and Librarians Agree On Access to Orphan Works. The full statement can be found at:
http://www.internationalpublishers.org/images/pdf/IndustryPolicy/IFLAIPA/
JointStatements/ifla-ipa%20orphan%20works%2020070607.pdf
HEB02.01
rev. 4/21/08
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