Tag Archives: Copyright

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

CMLE Copyright Event!

Med-Headshot
Nancy Sims, Copyright Librarian

Copyright – Us, Use, and Users

Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Time: 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Place: Stearns History Museum, 235 So. 33rd Ave. St. Cloud, MN 56301

REGISTER NOW!
(Deadline is November 12th….see your email for free admission promo code)
Need help? Send us an email.

You asked for it, CMLE has responded! We are proud to present this event on copyright, and are very excited to welcome the very capable, well-versed, Nancy Sims to our region. Nancy is well-known for her practical way of making copyright understandable,  entertaining, and fun too!

Nancy will lead this customized workshop, which will focus on fair use and public domain as they relate to the use of existing materials. The information will be relevant to our own internal library uses, and relevant to assisting library users/teachers/faculty/and administration as well.

  • First, Nancy will focus on fair use,then she will lead us through strategies and exercises in sharpening our fair use analysis skills.
  • Pre-submitting some of your questions to Nancy’s Google form should help her target information to areas of particular interest, and help make the best use of time together. See your email for the link to the form. 
  • Q & A: There will be plenty of time throughout the event for asking questions.
  • We will also spend time learning about free materials that are definitely, 100% legally usable by us and by our users – including public domain materials, open scholarship, and materials available via Creative Commons and other open licenses. Return to the workplace armed with bullet proof sources you can use immediately with no worries!

Why Come? Public, K-12, academic, and special librarians are often called upon to make decisions about copyright  for themselves, their end users, and for their institutions. And, it is surprising how much all library types have in common around copyright. A 3rd-grade teacher seeking iPad activities for a science lesson faces many of the same issues as a college instructor who wants to share course readings with students online. A university archivist and a public library patron with an interest in genealogy may both benefit from knowing more about the public domain. And almost every facility that provides public copiers or scanners has at least one staff member with concerns about responsibility for others’ use of those facilities.

Feel free to also invite teachers, curriculum directors, tech integrationists, and others who may also be part of your copyright team. CMLE scholarships are readily available within the registration process for librarians and school media specialists from the central Minnesota region.

This session will provide information about general legal principles, professional ethics, and various practical approaches to copyright issues. However, no legal advice will be provided.

Learning outcomes for participants:

  • Strengthen understandings of copyright law concepts such as fair use, the public domain, and open licensing.
  • Explore personal and institutional orientations to risk and liability through a professional ethics lens.
  • Develop confidence applying legal concepts to example situations drawn from real-world library and teaching experiences.
  • Know how to locate and appropriately make use of “100% legal” materials for your own purposes, and those of people you support

Nancy Sims is a lawyer/librarian who is fascinated by the pervasiveness of copyright and licensing issues in modern life. She enjoys helping individuals, groups, and organizations understand how technology choices, copyright, and related legal and policy issues may affect their work, research, art, and everyday communications. She is currently the Copyright Program Librarian at the University of Minnesota Libraries, and also does consulting and speaking with library, education, and technology organizations and institutions around the country.

Sims Photo Credit: Matt Baxter

 

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Creative Commons: Citation in an Online World

by-nc-saHow do you cite content you’re using from the web? Can you even use it in your work or on your website? If you need to modify it, can you? In today’s muddled online world, Creative Commons (CC) wants to be the answer to all your digital copyright questions.

So what is Creative Commons? In their own words, “Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools.” Their copyright licenses are easy to use and complement existing copyright to “provide a simple, standardized way to give the public permission to share and use your creative work.”

Sites like flickr, Wikipedia, and many others are using Creative Commons to let users know what they can and cannot use and how they can use it.

Here are some more excellent places to learn more about Creative Commons:

This year CMLE is using Creative Common’s attribution standards with most images we use in our posts. If you need to know more about the individual licenses you can go to Creative Commons’ About The Licenses page.

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Copyright Conundrum: Archived Content

Image retrieved from ALA Live website. All rights reserved.
Image retrieved from ALA Live website. All rights reserved.

The archived content is now available from  this broadcast.

 Copyright issues pose many challenges for librarians. In an era when we rely increasingly on electronic materials while still making use of traditional resources, our picture of rights and responsibilities can get cloudy. In “Copyright Conundrum” a panel of experts discuss the challenges we face and strategies you can use to help navigate copyright in this rapidly evolving area.

The expert panel for this episode consisted of:

  • Sandra Aya Enimil, Head of the Copyright Resources Center at The Ohio State University Library
  • Carrie Russell, Director, Program on Public Access to Information, Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) of the American Library Association
  • Laura Quilter, Copyright and Information Policy Librarian at the UMass Amherst Librarie
Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Free Copyright Webinar from ALA

Some rights reserved by psychicdevelopmentgroup
Some rights reserved by
psychicdevelopmentgroup

Copyright issues pose many challenges for librarians. In an era when we rely increasingly on electronic materials while still making use of traditional resources, our picture of rights and responsibilities can get cloudy. In April’s American Libraries Live, a panel of experts will discuss challenges and offer strategies to help you navigate copyright in this rapidly evolving area. Please tune in Thursday, April 10 at 1 p.m. Central for this free, streaming video broadcast that you can view from your home, library or on-the-go.

The expert panel includes:

Registration is not required, but if you are unable to attend the live event, registering is a good strategy. ALA will send you a link to the archived content, but if you have a burning question, consider attending live to get your question answered!

Don’t miss this episode! You can pre-register here or go to americanlibrarieslive.org on April 10 at 1pm CDT to view (pre-registration is not required).

Tip: If you are in the K-12 world, please notice that you have representation on the panel to deal with K-12 issues, which can be slightly different.

 

Academic, Check this out:, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Question from the Field: Public Performance Rights

FilmReels.popturfdotcomAn area media specialist/tech integrationist asked:  Our District Grad Party Committee wants to show a Shrek movie as part of the all night graduation party.  We know they likely have to pay licensing/royalties to do so. What I’m working to find out is why do we pay?  And how much is it?

Solutions to this question:

  1. It is wise to ask administration if they already have some sort of performance rights they’ve paid for OR whether they have a procedure in place for doing this. Knowing the internal procedure could help a great deal when working with the business office for payment too. Schools often have information about this because of performance rights that are needed for drama and music. IF there is nothing in place, move on to option 2!
  2. A search was done  using the terms “public performance rights” to produce a very helpful page on the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, one of the oldest public libraries in the nation.  You will want to bookmark this site, as it includes:
  • Frequently Asked Questions about Public Performance Rights,
  • Vendors that Sell Movies with Public Performance Rights,
  • How to Get Permission to Show Copyrighted Movies,
  • Vendors that Grant Public Performance Rights for Copyrighted Movies.

In reading the information, our media person then moved on to Criterion Pictures and got all of the information needed to legally show this movie.  According to her, “After talking via phone with someone there today–it will cost $75 for the group to show Shrek for the grad party.  The amount is based on the number of people, indoors at an school, not charging admission, not using it as a fundraiser.  (The cost could have ranged up to about $200). Criterion does movies from two of the big production companies.  Other companies do others.  They get movies to license when they come out on DVD.”

Wisdom from the Field? Do these two solutions match what you do in your setting? Do you have pearls of wisdom to add to this topic? Please share in the comments field what you know to enrich our toolkit around  public performance rights. Thanks!