This document discusses the current parameters for licensing and circulating digital content. It provides an overview of the current copyright landscape, including allowances for public domain works, fair use, and sections 108 and 109 of copyright law regarding libraries and archives. It also discusses how contracts and licenses can both prohibit and allow certain uses. The document proposes ways to alter the current landscape, such as pushing the boundaries of what is allowed by copyright and contract law for uses like online educational content and controlled digital lending. It emphasizes relationship management, risk management, and putting user and public interests first when pushing legal boundaries.

1. Current Parameters for
Licensing and Circulating
Digital Content
Nancy Sims, University of Minnesota Libraries
nasims@umn.edu
Twitter: @CopyrightLibn

2. Roadmap
• Current landscape
– Copyright
– Contracts/licenses
• Altering the current landscape
– Contracts/licenses
– Copyright
– Strategy
– Ethics

3. Current Landscape: Copyright
What does copyright law
currently say about
sharing our stuff?

4. Current Landscape: Copyright
Key takeaway: Copyright currently
says we CAN share stuff, in many
different situations.

5. Current Landscape: Copyright
Public Domain
• Public domain = we all
own it
– Unpublished 70 years after
death of author (prior to 1950)
• Or 120 years from date of creation
(1900)
– Published in the US prior to
1926
• 95 years from publication for
corporate authorship
• 1926-1978 OFTEN with
technicalities
Sketch depicting Cleopatra;
Michelangelo Buonarotti

6. Current Landscape: Copyright
Section 108
• For libraries & archives
that are open to the public
or at least to specialized
researchers
– Unsupervised equipment
– Making copies for patrons
– ILL
Making copies (clones?) c by BitBoy

7. Current Landscape: Copyright
Section 108 (+109)
• Preservation &
replacement copies
– “…in digital format is
not otherwise distributed
in that format and is not
made available to the
public in that format
outside the premises…”
• Section 109
– If you own it, you can lend, sell, & display it
Making copies (clones?) c by BitBoy

8. Current Landscape: Copyright
Fair Use
• IS NOT
– “Too hard”
– “Just a defense”/
“right to get sued”
• IS
– Heavily used by
cultural orgs
– A little complicated
– Four factors/
transformative, etc.

9. Current Landscape:Contracts/Licenses
• Contracts can prohibit us from doing
things that would otherwise be
allowed by law
• But they also can allow us to do things
that the law would otherwise prohibit
Day 47/365 – Dead Tree Graveyard c by-nc-nd Kevin H.

10. ALTERING THE CURRENT
LANDSCAPE

11. PUSHING THE BOUNDS OF
COPYRIGHT & CONTRACT LAW

12. Pushing the Bounds:Contracts/Licenses
• READ THEM
• NEGOTIATE THEM
• DON’T PAY FOR STUFF WITH
TERRIBLE TERMS
Day 47/365 – Dead Tree Graveyard c by-nc-nd Kevin H.

13. Pushing the Bounds: Copyright
• Public online copies like museum
collections (fair use, 108, 109)
• Educational uses like online storytime;
books/media for classes (fair use, 109, 110)
• “Non-consumptive” uses like search,
computational analysis (fair use, contracts)
• Controlled digital lending (fair use, 108, 109)

14. Pushing the Bounds: Copyright
• Current Pressure Points
– High res copies; contextual uses
– Section 108, 110: What are our “premises” or
what is “in class”, really?
– Can a digital copy be shared –instead- of a
physical one? (but see ReDigi)

15. Pushing the Bounds: Strategy
• Lots of relationship
management
– Library reporting
structures
– Vendor & donor
relationships
• Risk management
– Public/private
– History of org
Working on old photos c by-nc-nd Vermegrigio

16. Pushing the Bounds: Ethics
• Putting our users,
organizations, &
public interest
over private
interests
• Benefits to risk-
taking:
– Full-text search!
– Accessibility!
– Etc
Edge of the earth c by-nc supercake