Balancing Copyright and Access in Digital Collections

This presentation discusses rights issues faced by archives when building digital collections. Copyright, at times, is given a low priority during digitization project planning. Yet. determining copyright status, articulating rights statements, and providing access while protecting rights holders can be complicated, time-consuming tasks. Investigating rights is especially daunting for archives, given their great amount of unpublished materials and orphan works. As a result, there is a strong temptation to “blanket” digital collections with restrictive access and use statements. This presentation suggests methods for identifying copyright status, determining suitability for web distribution, and choosing appropriate rights statements using sample items from UASC's Institute of Design Records, 1937-1955