Recent ruling on copyright, fair use and “e-reserves”

Large academic publishers Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Sage Publications sued Georgia State University in 2008 over what they saw as a blatant over-use of “e-reserves” that deprived them of licensing revenue. The final ruling of that case was published Friday, May 11, 2012 and was decided (mostly) in GSU’s favor.

The judge broke down the argument into four “factors”:

1. “The purpose and character of the use”: academic and nonprofit
2.  “The nature of the copyrighted work”: “informational” not “creative”
3. “The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the…whole”: the stickiest point, and defined by percentage
4. “The effect of the use upon the potential market”: minimal; copyright in this case was to encourage new academic works

via ars technica, or for those wanted to read the entire 350-page ruling, click here (pdf).

National Gallery of Art launches new image resource with open access policy

Public and educational access to the National Gallery of Art’s collection just got a whole lot easier – all of its images believed to be in the public domain are now available for educational use, publication, and “personal enrichment”.  NGA Images contains more than 20,000 open access images, searchable and browsable through a very clean interface.   Users can save images to a “lightbox”, download a teaching size image (1200 pixels) or download a publication-quality image (after signing in and reading the use agreement) free of charge for any use.  The open access policy is available to read here.

Assumptions about Fair Use

Inside Higher Ed has an interesting article today, called “Myths about Fair Use“.  It does a great job of breaking down the myths in an easy-to-understand way.

A helpful copyright chart from Cornell University

If you have ever wondered whether an image or text is copyrighted or in the public domain, this chart from Cornell University is a great reference (and it was updated in January, 2010).  Copyright is never easy to figure out, but at least this has all the rules and exceptions in one place.

Artists go to Obama for copyright support

Over 11,000 visual artists, authors, filmmakers, architects and other artists who are part of the Copyright Alliance have signed a letter sent to the Obama administration asking for stronger copyright policy and support.    Read more about the movement at the Copyright Alliance.  And you can read the full text of the letter here, which highlights the cultural and monetary contributions of artists.

National Portrait Gallery vs. Wikipedia

The National Portrait Gallery in London is accusing a Wikipedia volunteer of downloading over 3000 high-resolution images onto the free online encyclopedia’s Wikimedia Commons. The NPG asserts that this denies revenue for the museum and is threatening legal action. Wikipedia counters that the museum is “betraying its public service mission.”

via BBC News and Wikinews

More on copyright

The Copyright Clearance Center has loads of information to help with copyright questions, including this 6-minute video that breaks down the basics.

The Copyright Alliance is another organization with a very helpful website, including a section specifically for Educators.

Is it copyrighted?

Ever wonder if that manuscript, book, image, etc. is protected under U.S. copyright laws? The American Library Association has come up with a fantastic tool to help answer that question: http://librarycopyright.net/digitalslider/. It lets users scroll through numerous copyright terms for works published or created during different time periods and under various conditions.