Description

This 90-minute introductory course will provide an overview of the origin and purpose of U.S. copyright law and how it promotes creativity, teaching, learning, and research in ways that have become an integral part of everyday life. This session will introduce copyright concepts most relevant to those working in libraries, archives, museums, and community cultural heritage organizations.

This course is recommended as a foundation for other copyright classes offered through LYRASIS & Columbia University Libraries through the Virtual Copyright Education Center.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand the basics provisions of copyright law in the U.S. that are most relevant to libraries, archives, museums, and cultural heritage organizations
• Describe an overview and framework to understanding copyright that empowers students to apply their knowledge in real-life situations that are common in cultural heritage organizations

Access

This class is freely available. Watch the recording.

Instructors

• Heather Briston is the Head of Curators and Collections, with responsibility to lead collection development activities, and UCLA University Archivist in the UCLA Library Special Collections. Previously, she was the Head of Public Services for UCLA Library Special Collections, the Corrigan Solari University Historian and Archivist at the University of Oregon, and also an archivist at the University of California, Berkeley Environmental Design Archives. She received her MSI (Archives and Records Management) from the University of Michigan, a Juris Doctor from Syracuse University, focusing on intellectual property law, and a BA in International Relations from Michigan State University. She is a member and past chair of the Society of American Archivists’ Working Group on Intellectual Property, and the former Secretary of the International Council on Archives Section on Archives in Universities and Research Institutes. She taught over twenty workshops for the Society of American Archivists focusing on legal issues in archives. She is the author of “Understanding Copyright Law” in Trends in Archives Practice: Rights in the Digital Era, and several book chapters addressing legal issues in archival collections.
  
  

• Melissa Smith Levine directs the Copyright Office at the University of Michigan Library. Her professional experience spans museums, archives and libraries — including the Smithsonian Institution and the Library of Congress. Before joining the University of Michigan, she served as curator for the World Bank Art Program and worked at Florida International University as associate director for finance and administration for the Wolfsonian Museum and as acting director of the Frost Art Museum. She works closely with the campus community to develop responsible approaches to copyright that support transformative learning experiences and strategic priorities. She provides policy and planning expertise to the campus community and the  HathiTrust Digital Library. Melissa teaches a course on intellectual property and policy for the MSI program at the  University of Michigan School of Information and taught for the Johns Hopkins masters in museum studies program. Melissa received the ALA’s L. Ray Patterson Copyright Award on behalf of a collaborative initiative to identify works in the public domain in research libraries. Made possible by support from the Institute for Museum and Library Services, Finding the Public Domain: A Copyright Toolkit documents the work.