copyright

photo of person looking through binoculars between two stacks of books
February 24, 2021

Online Copyright Education Offered by Columbia University Libraries and LYRASIS

In early February, Columbia University Libraries and LYRASIS launched the Virtual Copyright Education Center (VCEC) pilot project. With a stellar faculty drawn from experts in research libraries and museums, “the project will introduce new classes to enable cultural heritage professionals to move beyond a basic understanding of copyright. The project also includes business planning to develop a sustainable service model to enable continued training.”

Even with noticeable growth in the number of scholarly communications positions within the ARL community in the past decade, such positions—advising on issues like open access and copyright—are still less than 2 percent of the professional workforce within ARL. This project will help scale and level up highly specialized knowledge of copyright across research libraries. Librarians work with students and faculty to better understand copyright exemptions like the fair use doctrine that enable their research, teaching, and learning. Librarians will also help prepare campus communities for understanding challenges that might come through the new Copyright Claims Board via the CASE Act.

ARL welcomes this new educational initiative, with its first course, Copyright 101, launching for free during Fair Use Week 2021.

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February 24, 2021

The Heart of Copyright Policy: Fair Dealing, an Indian Perspective

By Akshat Agrawal, Legal Researcher, Delhi High Court

“Knowledge must be allowed to be disseminated” stated the Indian Supreme Court, in Entertainment Network (India) Ltd. and Ors. v. Super Cassettes. Harping upon the idea of Anglo-Saxan Copyright, justified by the tenets of utilitarianism, the SC clearly emphasized upon the need to balance exclusivity-based incentives as against concerns of access, especially when concerned with knowledge resources. This was nothing new. Long back, prior to the partition of India, when the Imperial Copyright Act of 1914 was in force, during and due to the shackles of colonialism, the Lahore High Court (erstwhile India) harped upon the coloniality of the copyright doctrine, realizing the needs of the Indian citizens to be able to develop indigenous knowledge through access, more than anything else. The Lahore High Court, in 1934, in the judgment of Kartar Singh v. Ladha Singh, very convincingly determined the limits of incentives and the utilitarian purposes of the free market statutory intervention that is copyright, by stating that “Under the guise of Copyright, a Plaintiff cannot ask the court to close all the avenues of research and scholarship, and all frontiers of human knowledge.” What a remarkable decision!

Akshat Agrawal
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February 23, 2021

Dalhousie Fair Dealing Guidelines

Dalhousie University

Under the Copyright Act, express permission of the copyright owner is required before making copies or distributing works, with some exceptions. These guidelines outline the framework for operating under one of these exceptions – “fair dealing” for the purposes of research, private study, review, criticism or news reporting, education, parody and satire. These guidelines outline the limits and requirements for making paper and electronic copies of a portion of a published work by individuals for their own use, by faculty for use in their courses of study and by libraries for the use of their patrons.

Learn more: https://libraries.dal.ca/services/copyright-office/fair-dealing/fair-dealing-guidelines.html

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February 23, 2021

Strengthening Canadian User Rights through Shared Understanding: Adapting the Codes of Best Practices in Fair Use for Canada

Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL)

In this paper, we argue that while fair dealing is not a carbon copy of fair use, it is similar enough that many of the principles and limitations set out in the many codes of best practices in fair use published in the United States would be applicable in the Canadian context.

Read the paper: https://www.carl-abrc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Strengthening_Canadian_-User_Rights_Through_Shared_Understanding_Adapting_Codes_of_Best_Practices_Fair_Use_Canada.pdf

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February 23, 2021

Apple v. Corellium: Some Early Takeaways for Software Fair Use

By Brandon Butler

What uses of software are fair? What uses are transformative – the category of use that courts most consistently find to be fair? The question is increasingly urgent for libraries, archives, and museums, as we already live in a world where most information (from government archives to fine art) is stored in digital formats that can’t be read without the right software. In addition, software itself is also an artifact and a source of information that researchers want to consult and explore. Fair use is a key tool in library digital stewardship, but fair use’s application to software is rarely, if ever, litigated.

Read the full blog: http://blogs.harvard.edu/copyrightosc/2021/02/23/fair-use-week-2021-day-two-with-guest-expert-brandon-butler/

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February 23, 2021

What is Fair Use?

By Copyright Alliance

Fair use is an affirmative defense that can be raised in response to claims by a copyright owner that a person is infringing a copyright. Fair use permits a party to use a copyrighted work without the copyright owner’s permission for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research. These purposes only illustrate what might be considered as fair use and are not examples of what will always be considered as fair use. In fact, there are no bright-line rules in determining fair use, since it is determined on a case-by-case basis. But copyright law does establish four factors that must be considered in deciding whether a use constitutes a fair use.

Read the full blog: https://copyrightalliance.org/faqs/what-is-fair-use/

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February 22, 2021

Virtual Escape Room—Fair Dealing Week Edition

University of New Brunswick Libraries

You probably make use of fair dealing every day without even realizing it! Whether emailing a news article to a friend, using a clip from a song, using a copyrighted image on social media, or quoting passages from a book when writing an essay. Activities such as these are not considered to be copyright infringement – in fact, the ability for users to make copies for specific purposes is an integral part of the Canadian Copyright Act.

Every year libraries and educational institutions across North America celebrate the rules that allow sharing of portions of published works for research and education.

In celebration of Fair Dealing Week 2021 you’re invited to enter our Virtual Escape Room.

Learn more: https://lib.unb.ca/news/virtual-escape-room-fair-dealing-week-edition

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