Copyright

I am of the understanding that NYS departments documentation falls under public domain. Can you provide any insight into this? Thank you!

I can most certainly provide some insight on this topic. But first, some terminology...

For readers who don't know, the "public domain" is the "place" distinct works of authorship (poems, paintings, books, etc.) go to when they are no longer protected by copyright. When a work is "in" the "public domain" it means it can be used without fear of copyright infringement.

Our local public library has started a collection of donated yearbooks from the high school. They requested to receive or purchase new yearbooks as they were published. As the yearbook contains underage students, information about their sports and clubs, we felt that this was protected personal information and should not be publicly accessible.

I appreciate the care behind this question: when yearbook information is being assembled, not many people are thinking about all the places the publication could potentially go.

A taskforce at the college is wanting to use a recent song and video on Youtube. This would be a traditional lip dub with a little step up in production as they would use some greenscreen and use some face tracking to animate anti-racist quotes on the faces of the participants. They want to mimic some of the effects in the video as well as add some of our own. So it is transforming the work.

This submission is a "fair use”[1] question coming at us from a private college, so before we delve into a reply, I have to emphasize that the specific analysis in this case is limited to that type of entity (a private, accredited school).

Since it can get boring "emphasizing" disclaimers in prose form, I will emphasize it in verse:

(Question has been slightly modified to maintain anonymity)

Menus can be works of art.[1]

"Art" of course, is a subjective term, and has no precise, stand-along definition in copyright law.[2]  So more importantly for this discussion, a "menu" can be a composition of such originality and substance, that it is protected by copyright law.

When is it advisable for an author/creator to register a work with the copyright office?

I work in higher education. Students will sometimes ask for information on copyright protection for a thesis (written, not performance). Sometimes faculty will ask about protecting various devices of education such as a syllabus, exam or spreadsheet.

There are some really good, separate answers to this question.  I'll present them in the order I think would be useful to students and academics.

Answer #1: Clarity of ownership

A high school band has purchased music with permission to perform. The music teacher has requested that the performance be shared on the school's website. From my understanding, the performance may be shared live / streamed (permission to broadcast) via the school's web page but may not be recorded and then posted to the website.

Your understanding is correct, but there are three additional details it is helpful to consider in this type of situation:

First, when a school confronts a concern like this, it should take a careful look at the license (the permission to use a copyright-protected composition) it purchased. 

My institution has a small number of documents in our archives related to previous graduate students. Some are definitely educational records (transcripts, field placement evaluations).

I am always fascinated by the transformation documents can undergo, simply by operation of law, circumstance, or time.  For instance:

One of our member libraries has asked me the following question:

This is a cool idea—aggregating and cataloging drone shots.   Someone fifty years from now will be very, very grateful for that type of work!

But as the member points out, there could be some technical or legal issues, namely: copyright, privacy, and security.  How does the library make sure none of those concerns negatively impact the project?

Let's take those in order.

The awful CASE ACT is now a law. While I think the language is problematic, I fear trolls will try to collect money ($30,000) from libraries unaware of this change in copyright.

For those readers who haven't been following it, the "CASE Act" authorizes the federal Copyright office to create a "small claims" division for the adjudication of "small" (under $30k, and no award of attorney's fees) copyright infringement cases. [1],

I've seen libraries take pictures of book covers and promote them on their library social media page, and was wondering if the same policy holds for movies. Can we take a picture of the front covers our new DVDs and promote them on Facebook? Or is it preferred that patrons browse our new DVDs in the library and/or on our library catalog?

There are a lot of legal technicalities hidden in this question, but before we get to them, here is my overall advice: The more your library generates unique, custom content showing the people, personalities and experiences of your library on your social media,[1] the more you can include copyright and trademark-restricted content in social