Copyright Practices
The issue of copyright ownership is frequently raised in the course of normal use of collection materials. The vast majority of content in the archives was not produced by Spec and therefore original copyright does not lie with the department. In limited cases copyrights may have been formally transferred to Spec by the donor. Additionally, some material may not reside in the public domain based upon its age. In all cases, Spec representatives should proceed cautiously when a patron asks for rights to reproduce materials for any purpose other than those listed under the fair use clause of copyright law1. Patrons should be instructed that it is their personal responsibility to locate the copyright owner and secure permissions to reproduce any materials gathered from Spec in the course of their research.
For materials originally produced by the University of Idaho or an employee in the course of their work, a formal request for approval to reproduce should be submitted through the Office of Technology Transfer.
When reproductions of materials are provided to a patron, the following language should accompany the transfer, in email, in a digital document included in the transfer file or flash drive, or as a printed note along with physical copies.
Nearly all materials may be legally protected by copyright laws, even if they were never published or registered with a copyright office. This means that material within this archive may be copyright protected. Though most archival research is personal or scholarly - and so falls into the category of “Fair Use” - it’s important to understand how copyright works and how you can use copyrighted materials. The copyright holder must license the work or give permission to anyone who wants to reproduce, adapt, distribute, display, or transmit it. To be cautious, assume that all creative works - including audio and video recordings, photographs and images, even documents, writing drafts, drawings and sketches - are copyright protected, unless you can prove otherwise. To re-use copyrighted material in your own work, you may need to seek a license or permission to use the work from the copyright holder. It is the responsibility of the user to determine if their intentions fall within Fair Use, who holds the copyright, and how to obtain permissions. The University of Idaho Library is not liable for any violations of the law by users. (Language adapted from University Libraries at University of Colorado Boulder)
The legal exception of Fair Use under copyright law allows for the reproduction of copyrighted works under certain conditions. In general, patron requests can be judged against the following criteria.
MORE LIKELY to be Fair Use:
Content adapted from Amy Dygent, "Copyright services and the university," Society of American Archivists Annual Meeting 2020.
| Purpose & Character of Use | If the work created is:
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| Purpose & Character of Original Material | If the archival material used is:
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| Amount of Original Material Used | If intended to take from original material:
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| Effect of Use on Potential Market | If:
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LESS LIKELY to be Fair Use:
Content adapted from Amy Dygent, "Copyright services and the university," Society of American Archivists Annual Meeting 2020.
| Purpose & Character of Use | If the work created is:
|
| Purpose & Character of Original Material | If the archival material used is:
|
| Amount of Original Material Used | If intended to take from original material:
|
| Effect of Use on Potential Market | If:
|
Footnotes
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“Fair use is a legal doctrine that promotes freedom of expression by permitting the unlicensed use of copyright-protected works in certain circumstances. Section 107 of the Copyright Act provides the statutory framework for determining whether something is a fair use and identifies certain types of uses—such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research—as examples of activities that may qualify as fair use.” Sourced from https://www.copyright.gov/fair-use/ on Sep. 29, 2022. ↩