Making & Sharing Scholarship: Copyright Issues in Scholarly Communication (2017 Nebraska ACRL Scholarly Communication Roadshow, University of Nebraska-Lincoln)

Excerpts from the presenters\u27 notes: Today’s focus – not copyright generally, or copyright for things like library digitization, but copyright in the context of scholarly publishing. Copyright’s purpose and higher education’s purpose have a lot in common. We as a society all benefit if people can build on the discoveries that came before them, while having an incentive to create new things. Article I, Section 8, where the authority for US copyright law comes from, reads To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. The first ever copyright law, the Statute of Anne (Great Britain, 1710) is formally titled An Act for the Encouragement of Learning, (by Vesting the Copies of Printed Books in the Authors or Purchasers of such Copies, during the Times therein mentioned). Copyright Fundamentals Copyright attaches automatically to original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression -no registration required