We have written much on the subject of copyright and there is much more to write. The thorniest area is that which we referred to as the ‘grey area’, which lies between public domain and in print, in copyright and with full traceable ownership. To many this area of ambiguity is best left at it is – murky. To others it stops books being brought back into print and given a second chance. Establishing the rules is relatively easy establishing ownership is a lot more difficult.
The American Library Association (ALA) have produced a copyright slider to make it easier for their members to understand the rules on all materials. The slider shows that copyrighted works published without a copyright notice and created between 1923 and 1977 are in the public domain now. However, if published with copyright notice, they will be protected to at least 2018. However, even with a copyright notice, this only applies if they renewed after 28 years. Pretty clear there then! That is without the differences between US, UK and other countries!
The slider is available online and has been created by Michael Brewer at the University of Arizona. The ALA also offers a ‘Fair Use Checklist’ that applies the four criteria of use to provide guidance to determine on ‘fair use’. Personally we found it rose as many questions as it answered, but we supposed some clarity is better than none.
Copyright is the backbone of publishing and intellectual property. If the ALA have to produce guidance sheets for what are ‘professional information managers’ it begs the question of how authors and consumers have any idea what is public, what is fair use and the rules. As we enter an era where controls are passing from professional and institutions to anybody we have to question whether the rules can be either simplified or tracing copyright can become easier? Why haven’t we got an effective copyright clearance centre? Why isn’t copyright clearly accessible on all digital materials? How do we find about rights reversals, permissions and other issues if the basics are so ambitious?
Scan first ask later maybe is an understandable route for some!
