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Posted Copyright in Your Personal Life to Copyright Librarian
This post is based on a talk I gave/conversation I had today at the "Enhancing Quality Staff" symposium. I love this symposium, because I get to wander away from academic copyright issues, and there's always a ton of cool people who want to wander with me! This time, the session...
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Posted On releasing an image to the wilds... to Copyright Librarian
(There are no image credits on this post because (much to my slight embarrassment) I made all of these. The eggs are all Creative Commons licensed over on Flickr; click any picture to go there.)I have a long history of making slightly geeky easter eggs for friends and family. I...
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Posted Wikipedia as an image source to Copyright Librarian
Wikipedia is increasingly an excellent source of images that are free for all kinds of uses. This recently came up in a discussion about resources for MOOC teaching, but it can also be a great source for a wide variety of projects. If an image is on Wikipedia, it is...
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Posted On turning down a job to Copyright Librarian
Fairly recently, I was approached by a graduate professional program to teach a short, for-credit, winter-term course on copyright. I was really excited by the opportunity - I mostly lead one-shot sessions, and I was looking forward to getting into more depth with a group of students. I'd started planning...
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Posted What is the government's interest in copyright? Not that of the public. to Copyright Librarian
Like many other geeklaw & policy folks, I was baffled from the get-go by the decisions of federal prosecutors to pursue massive criminal charges against Aaron Swartz for downloading papers from JSTOR. I could understand that his activities constituted problematic behavior, but not the blustering punitive response. If Aaron's wrongful...
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Posted Negotiation: Getting past some of the barriers we erect for ourselves to Copyright Librarian
Negotiation can look like this.Adapted from more on 360 BY-NC Esthr/Esther Dyson A lot of people I talk to are kind of reluctant to try to change any terms when they're presented with a contract to sign in their daily lives. It's true that a lot of the contracts...
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Posted Automatic captions and derivative works to Copyright Librarian
Today, I was showing a bunch of colleagues how to use YouTube's auto-captioning feature, and letting people do some demo videos. My colleagues recorded videos of themselves reading poetry, or reciting song lyrics - and those videos are probably technically derivative works! But the captions themselves are derivatives of the...
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Posted Extremely off-topic: cold-weather bike gear to Copyright Librarian
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen me mention my bike, and/or riding bikes, juuuust a few times. I've been bike-commuting in good weather pretty much since I moved to MN a couple years ago, but last winter, due to construction on campus that made buses much...
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Posted Making Mud to Copyright Librarian
There is one copyright question I love to discuss with folks here at the University, because it's one where I can give them an actual certain answer, and it's one they want to hear: "Can we watch this movie in my class?" "Yes!" Ah, the joys of 17 USC §...
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Posted 2012 Tech Expo coming soon! to Emerging Tech Expo
2012 Tech Expo - Thursday, November 29 11:00am-2:00pm - Coffman Union 3rd Floor The Emerging Tech Expo has something for everyone! Featuring a combination of technology presentations and exhibits, the Emerging Tech Expo offers all Libraries staff a fun opportunity...
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Posted Author's Guild v Hathi Trust: A Win for Copyright's Public Interest Purpose to Copyright Librarian
DISCLOSURE/DISCLAIMER: I worked at the University of Michigan Libraries for several years during the beginning of the book scanning project with Google that preceded this lawsuit. The University of Minnesota Libraries, my current employer, is also affiliated with the HathiTrust. This post represents only my own opinions and thoughts on...
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Posted Felony Terms of Use Violations? Lessons for all of us to Copyright Librarian
Recently a new criminal indictment was filed against Aaron Swartz, for his alleged activities downloading large numbers of journal articles. These charges are mostly based on violations of use agreements for JSTOR and the MIT campus network - that is, if the use agreements had been written differently, there might...
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Posted Fall Copyright Workshops Open! to Copyright Librarian
The University of Minnesota Libraries offer free copyright information workshops to the UMN community. Most are aimed at faculty, but open to participation by others. RCR continuing ed credit is often available. If these scheduled sessions are not convenient or relevant for you, we also offer sessions for research groups...
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Posted Clearing up a misconception about Open Source Software to Copyright Librarian
Recycling emails into blog posts, yay! Although I'm not much of a programmer, I'm a big fan of Open Source Software. Freeing source code for tinkering by random interested parties has produced a ton of awesome things I use all the time (Linux! Gimp! Libre Office! Inkscape! Audacity! Freakin' VLC,...
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Posted Friday Fun: Facts, Expression, and Illustrations to Copyright Librarian
There's a blank calendar grid on the wall outside my office. It's not there for scheduling.If you can't read it, the text printed at the very bottom of the calendar grid says "Copyright © 1997 Houghton Mifflin Company. All Rights Reserved." The annotations in red marker ("HA HA HA HA...
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Posted Music, musicians, music fans, ownership, legitimacy... to Copyright Librarian
(re-posted from previous links-roundup post) There is so much to say about all this, but it's kind of all been said already. Here's a few of the things I've been reading in preparation for talking about it on MPR this morning. MPR's other station, The Current, has some good, concrete coverage...
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Posted Revolutionaries to Copyright Librarian
Since we're almost at the holiday that recognizes the U.S. Declaration of Independence, today seems an appropriate time to voice some rebellious thoughts. I often spend time in talks and conversations trying to shift libraryfolk away from a compliance/risk-management mindset, and towards a risk-tolerant/risk-embracing mindset. For example, I often try...
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Posted I have thoughts... to Copyright Librarian
...they just don't often end up here. I always want to write comprehensively - but many of the things I think about are way too big to write comprehensively about in a blog format. So, in hopes of more of my thoughts making it here, even in incomplete form, some...
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Posted What every researcher should know about copyright to Copyright Librarian
This is a cross-post with the Research @ the U of M blog - so some of the info here is specific to the University of Minnesota. This could have been a "Frequently Asked Questions" list - except that the questions I am most frequently asked by researchers usually have...
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Posted Free and Legal Stuff You Can USE! to Copyright Librarian
Adapted from a presentation today at "Enhancing Quality Staff 2012", which a really fun and engaging symposium, and always really well-run (by UMN Libraries colleagues.) Sometimes it gets a little tiring to work through all the details of copyright exemptions and exceptions. Especially when we're building on other people's stuff...
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Posted On plagiarism and the public research university to Copyright Librarian
Heller Hall BY-NC jadammel/Joe D. (photo taken at the U of M)Recently, a blogger copied from a University-produced blog at significant length without credit or a link back to the original site - behavior that understandably produced pretty negative feelings from the staff members whose work was being reproduced without...
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Posted This is NOT a small technicality! to Copyright Librarian
One major argument publishers have taken with respect to open access mandates is that they harm the publishers' intellectual property rights. While "harm" is relative, it is true that an open access mandate forces publishers to handle intellectual property rights differently. Just, not in the ways publishers say it does....
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Posted A few clarifications on Pinterest/Copyright/TOS worries to Copyright Librarian
Glad a lot of people are finding my previous post about Pinterest useful and informative. A number of comments, tweets, and emails have pointed out a couple of areas that I glossed over too fast in that post, so here's a couple of additions and clarifications. 1. A couple of...
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Posted Pinterest, copyright, and Terms of Service to Copyright Librarian
[Update, 3/13/12 - some clarifications and additions.]There's a couple of different articles circulating about a Pinterest user regretfully deleting her Pinterest boards and/or account, because it's just illegal/unethical/morally wrong/too scary/something else. A number of my friends have shared links to these articles or others about Pinterest and legal issues, accompanied...
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Posted Best Practices in Fair Use - a couple of thoughts to Copyright Librarian
Earlier this week, the Association of Research Libraries released a new document called the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries. The document is the result of a multi-year process of interviews and focus groups with librarians and others involved in library work and management,...
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