Copyright and the Public Domain – A Handy Reference
Posted by Robyn Fleming on January 9th, 2012
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Most of us learned in library school that things published in the U.S. prior to 1923 are in the public domain. That’s a good hard and fast rule, but naturally copyright can be much more complicated than that.
Cornell University has long been involved in disseminating quality information about copyright and the public domain. They have provided a nice chart, titled “Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States,” which provides extensive information on exactly when an item can be considered public domain according to U.S. and international law.
This is especially useful when considering whether we can digitize something from our collection and make it freely available online, but I’m sure there are other occasions when this information will be helpful to some of you.
Thanks to Cristina del Valle in the Counsel’s Office for reminding us about this resource.
- 9 January, 2012 @ 14:41 by Robyn Fleming
January 10th, 2012 at 11:58 am
Also, don’t sleep on the cool ‘Digital Copyright Slider’ from the University of Arizona/ALA Office for Information Technology: http://librarycopyright.net/digitalslider/