Join host Susan McKinnell and University of Minnesota guest experts as they discuss what you need to know about copyright and fair use in the digital age.
Guests
Dan Donnelly
Dan Donnelly
Since 1983 Dan Donnelly has been the manager of the University of Minnesota Libraries' media collections services. His experience over the years in managing copyright permissions and compliance for recorded materials led to an invitation, in 1995, to join the Digital Media Center at the University and help develop a training and information program about exercising copyright in technology-based teaching and learning environments. Dan accepted the invitation and has since become a frequent presenter on copyright and fair use in education at regional and national conferences. Dan is presently heading up the University Libraries' Copyright Information and Education Initiative, an effort to support responsible copyright compliance among University teachers, researchers, staff members, and administrators who are teaching with technology.
Ruth Okediji
Ruth Okediji
Professor Ruth Okediji is one of the leading authorities in the United States on international intellectual property law. After visiting the University of Minnesota in 2001, Professor Okediji joined the faculty in the 2002 to 2003 academic year. She served on the faculty at the University of Oklahoma College of Law from 1994 to 2002, where she held the Edith Kinney Gaylord Presidential Professorship.
Professor Okediji's scholarship focuses primarily on international intellectual property issues with an emphasis on the relationship between multilateral trade law and intellectual property policy. Her work addresses the relationship between developing and developed countries in the international intellectual property system, including economic analysis of the bargaining strategies that facilitate harmonization of intellectual property rights.
She is the immediate past-chair of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section of Law and Computers, and chair-elect of the AALS Section on Intellectual Property.
For Your Files
University of Minnesota law professor Ruth Okediji said copyright does apply to what's on the Web and even in e-mail:
"The copyright owner is determined by who the author is. So did you create the work and fix it in a tangible medium of expression? As we've said, digital content on Web pages, those qualify as fixation. If you download something from the Internet, you've violated the right to copy because of course you're copying the work. So, when I send you an e-mail, technically, if you forward that e-mail, you've reproduced it, and so you've violated my copyright."
Dan Donnelly, head of copyright information for the University Libraries, said "fair use" is an exception to copyright:
"[It is used for] purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, [and] teaching. It is dependent on the consideration of four factors whenever you're going to use any copyrighted work. First and foremost, let's look at the purpose and character of the use. What are you doing and why are you doing it? Next, [the court] is going to look at the nature of the work used. What is it? Next, the court is going to look at the amount and the substantiality of the work that you've used. And the fourth factor is the effect of your use on the market or the potential market for the original work. . . . A court would look at your use on a case-by-case basis. You have to do this for anything you might use and you have to again balance these four factors."
Links
You can find more information about copyright on the Library of Congress Web site and the United States Copyright Office Web site.
Fair Use
The concept contained in U.S. copyright law that allows for some copying of materials without formal permission
for the purposes of criticism,
comment, news, reporting, teaching, scholarship, or research.
Public Domain
Intellectual property, including software, Web documents, images, etc. that are not legally protected by
copyright or patent regulations and are freely available for use to the public.