Copyright limitations have become a real problem for historians working on the web. This is particularly true for historians who focus on the post-1945 world, as a lot of materials can simply not be used on the web because of copyright restrictions, and those restrictions have become ever more stringent in the last fifty years. This is particularly the case with photos and video. And to be quite frank, I have run into all kinds of copyright restrictions with my different digital projects.
One good case of the problematic nature of copyright restrictions involves Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream speech." which is no longer considered to be in the public domain. Here is a short version of the issue. The King Center's lengthy statement of archival terms and conditions is pretty detailed.
The Rosenzweig textbook has a particularly well-written chapter on copyright law and its recent evolution. I find especially interesting the idea that the US Congress, by enacting ever more protective laws for copyright holder authors, has routinely avoided benefiting the public interest with its versions of copyright law (and probably skirted the intent of the Constitution).
Copyright in the United States is currently bound by the provisions of the Berne Convention Implementation Act (1988) and the Copyright Renewal Act of 1992. In the U.S., copyright protection basically lasts 70 years past an author's death. There is no requirement to file for copyright protection; copyright is in effect as soon as something is fixed, for example, written down or created. Check the quick link chart below for an illustration of a simple copyright approach.
Fair Use is the procedure for establishing whether an item can be used with, or without, a licensing fee or an author's permission. Whether you can use a copyrighted item under the fair use provision (section 107) of copyright law can become an extremely complicated question. I highly recommend that you take a look at the Association of Research Libraries, Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries. In a non-profit, educational setting, there are quite a few alternatives around copyright restrictions. In any case, it is always best to try and get permission first for use from the owner of the copyright.
You might not have been aware of the fact that there are six different levels of Creative Commons licenses. Creative commons allows a creator to share a work with some relaxed copyright stipulations on its further use. Use the search engine to help you find creative commons objects, like photographs.
When it comes to web-based content for my projects, I try to use (1) my own content, photos, texts; (2) then materials that are clearly no longer copyright-protected; (3) objects for which I have obtained the permission of the owner. If I use an item that I am uncertain about, I do take care to cite and give credit. In all cases, my work is non-profit, and I am clearly not trying to profit from another's work. "Use but don't forget to cite and credit."
Some sources that will help you determine whether a work is (or is not) under copyright protection
- How Can I Tell Whether a Copyright Was Renewed?
- Stanford University, Copyright Renewal Database (just remember that just because an item was published that does not mean that it is still under copyright protection)
- Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States (quick chart)
- A Framework for Handling any Copyright Problems (PDF) (original source by Kevin Smith and Lisa Macklin
Some further interesting sites dealing with copyright
- A Fair(y) Use Tale (You must watch this.)
- Scientific American, Who Owns the Past? The federal government should fix or drop new regulations that throttle scientific study of America's heritage (This is worth reading, but no one in Congress is reading it. Most are watching the Disney Channel.)
- Digital Rights Management (Wikipedia article that is a good summary of the complicated restrictions placed on digital materials)
- Copyright Alliance
- Jeremy Rowe, Copyrights and Other Rights in Photographic Images (This is ten years old but an excellent article. I have also noticed the role of Corbis and Getty images has expanded greatly in the past ten years. Both have been very aggressive in expanding their collections and asserting their rights. Finally, I have noticed the price of lots of old photos and slides have skyrocketed on Ebay. Seven years ago I could buy lots of slides (200 or 300 images) for just a few dollars. Now the price is 40 to 50 dollars.)
- THE AUTHORS GUILD, INC., et al., Plaintiffs, against HATHITRUST, et al., Defendants. This deals with the issue of Google books scanned content and fair use.
- Melissa Levine, Finding the Public Domain, The Copyright Review Management System
- Stanford University: Copyright & Fair Use and also Stanford University: Proposed Educational Guidelines on Fair Use
- University of Texas: Copyright Crash Course: Fair Use Guidelines
- The Ohio State University Libraries, Copyright Guide for Students
- University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries, Copyright for Digital Media Assignments
- Cornell University: Public Domain Timeline
- Teaching Copyrights
- United States Copyright Office
- Information Technology: Complications of Public Domain
- AIGA: Copyright for Creative Professionals
Things that I probably should say more about with regard to copyright implications but haven't gotten around to writing
- Zapruder Film (the footage of the JFK assassination taken by Abraham Zapruder)
- UVA Digital History Center project on Television News of the Civil Rights Era, 1950-1970 (copyright and technology issues at play here)
- ADA compliance (This is always an important consideration when designing and developing digital materials. For example, if I use YouTube videos in an online course, then those videos must be close captioned.)
- Video explaining The Amen Break
- Napster, a landmark case dealing with mp3 file sharing, which was held to be illegal
- Wikipedia's page for A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc.
- Berkeley Technology Law Journal Volume 17 | Issue 1 January 2002 A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. Lisa M. Zepeda
- THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT A&M RECORDS, INC., et al. Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. NAPSTER, INC., Defendant-Appellant.
- U.S. Copyright Office Fair Use Index - a short one page overview