Intellectual Property Rights

Introduction

Internet IPR is inherently complex, breaking across geographical boundaries, creating situations that are illegal in one country, yet not in another, or contradict existing laws on Intellectual Property. Copyright is a subset of IPR, which applies to all artistic works. It is automatically assigned to the creator of original material, allowing them to control all public usage (copying, adaptation, performance and broadcasting).

Ensuring that your organization complies with Intellectual Property rights requires a detailed understanding of two processes:

1. Managing copyright on own work.
2. Establishing ownership of 3rd party copyright.

Managing Copyright on Own Work

Unless indicated, copyright is assigned to the author of an original work. When producing work it is essential that it be established who will own the resulting product the individual or the institution. Objects produced at work or university may belong to the institution, depending upon the contract signed by the author. For example, the copyright for this document belongs to the AHDS, not the author. When approaching the subject, the author should consider several issues:

• Can I establish that I am the author of this work? - At this point the author should provide evidence they produced the work on a specific date. One commonly used method is to post a sealed envelope to yourself or request that a solicitor store evidence within a safe. If ownership is challenged at a later date, the document can be opened in the presence of a solicitor.
• Am I using unaccredited copyrighted material produced by others? - Published work that contains unaccredited material infringe upon the intellectual property of others. The results of such discovery will vary: the unaccredited author may request they are credited or a correction is published; the author may request their work is removed; or they make take legal action against the author. To avoid such issues, document all research made during investigation.

When producing work as an individual that is intended for later publication, the author should establish ownership rights to indicate how work can be used after initial publication:

• Ownership after publication - Authors are encouraged to retain as many rights as possible to enable the continued use of articles in hard copy and electronic form.
• Ownership in different mediums - In addition, where publication in a specific form (e.g. hard-copy) is the intention, rights to publish in other forms (e.g. electronic) should, if possible, be retained.

Copyright Clearance

Copyright is an automatically assigned right. It is therefore likely that the majority of works in a digital collection will be covered by copyright, unless explicitly stated. The copyright clearance process requires the digitiser to check the copyright status of:

• Published, unpublished and Web site articles
• Photographs and illustrations
• Dynamic media (sound, video)
• Software components
• Database usage

Copyright clearance should be established at the beginning of a project. If clearance is denied after the work has been included in the collection, it will require additional effort to remove it and may result in legal action from the author.

• Maintain a negotiation log - A log will document all meetings, outlining subjects of discussion, objections and agreements by either party. This will enable the organization to refer to the relevant section to establish they have gained copyright clearance and refer to a detailed description of the meetings that took place.
• Identify who the author is and when it was produced - Current copyright law indicates the author's lifespan plus 70 years as the limit for copyright. Therefore it is possible that a collection may consist of works that are outside current copyright laws (such as the entire works of Shakespeare, Conan Doyle, etc.). If the author is still alive, they must be contacted to gain permission to use their work.
• Establish long-term access rights - Internet content may appear in a site archive for several years after it was published. When meeting the author, establish any time factors in use of their work, indicating the length of time that work can be used. If the goal of the project is to enable long-term preservation of work, persuade the individual/s to allow the repository to host work indefinitely and translate it to modern formats when required.

In the event that an author, or authors, is unobtainable, the project is required to demonstrate they have taken steps to contact them. Digital preservation projects are particularly difficult in this aspect, separating the researcher and the copyright owner by many years. In many cases, more recently the 1986 Domesday project, it has proven difficult to trace authorship of 1000+ pieces of work to individuals. In this project, the designers created a method of establishing permission and registering objections by providing contact details that an author could use to identify their work.

Indicating IPR through Metadata

If permission has been granted to reproduce copyright work, the institution is required by law to indicate intellectual property status. Metadata is commonly used for this purpose, storing and distributing IP data for online content. Several metadata bodies provide standardized schemas for copyright information. For example, IP information for a book could be stored in the following format.

<book id="bk112"> <author>Galos, Mike</author> <title>Visual Studio 7: A Comprehensive Guide</title>           <publish_date>2001-04-16</publish_date>           <publisher>Addison Press</publisher>           <copyright>Galos, M. 2001</copyright> </book>

Access inhibitors can also be set to identify copyright limitations and the methods necessary to overcome them. For example, limiting e-book use to IP addresses within a university environment.

Further Information

• PADI - Intellectual property rights management
  <http://www.nla.gov.au/padi/topics/28.html>
• TASI - Looking after Copyright, IPR, Ethics and Data Protection
  <http://www.tasi.ac.uk/advice/managing/copyrights.html>