Copyright

If staff record themselves through our phone system reading published short stories and poems that are then made accessible to the public through the same phone system, are there issues with copyright? Various public libraries nationwide offer dial a story services, and my school district public library is looking to offer this too.

For this answer, we are again joined by Jessica Keltz, associate attorney at the Law Office of Stephanie Adams, PLLC.

I am in the stages of planning a library one-time-only event aimed at getting college students interested in writing their own works of fiction. There are no class credits involved. My premise is “Where do ideas come from?”

For this question, the Law Office of Stephanie Adams, PLLC used a ringer--experienced publishing law and published author Sallie Randolph, who works in our office, advising authors on publishing contracts.  We asked Sallie for her take--as both a copyright attorney and an author--on this intriguing question. Here is her reply:

I have an instructor who asked if it would be violating copyright infringement if she shares articles from her personal Continuing Education Units (CEU) account subscription with her students as class reading assignments.

NOTE: This question arose during the scramble for online resources during the nation’s response to COVID-19.  Click here for a full array of COVID-19-related questions about library operations and copyright matters impacted by pandemic response.

The director of the college print shop has come to me for copyright assistance. Our faculty often ask for photocopies of materials for distribution to students in class. She asks the faculty member if they have the appropriate permissions for making copies but is not always convinced by their answers.

This question seems simple, but it actually involves some high-end concepts of business law and liability.[1]

We are finding that librarians within larger institutions (like colleges and museums) are the go-to resource for copyright questions, which could also include institutional copyright concerns.  What should a librarian do if the "question" they are presented with is really an allegation of copyright infringement?

“Ask The Lawyer” has touched on this topic a bit before.  In our 9/19/17 RAQ post “Skating the Line Between Helpful Information and Legal Advice,” we discussed the risks posed when patrons and co-workers confuse the helpful attitude and boundless information provided by librarians with legal services. 

More than once we have received requests to provide digital copies of audio files from institutions that wish to make them accessible either through headphones or as ambient sound as parts of public exhibitions. The exhibitions presumably charge some sort of fee.

This one is tricky.

It’s tricky because it stands on a no-man’s land comprised of fair use, library law, contract, and licensing.  This is a place where libraries boldly go on a routine basis, but lawyers fear to tread.  But we’ll try and parse it out.

To do so, we need to remember some “Considerations”:

I am working with an artist on a future display at our library. He is a regionally known professional artist. He is working on an engraving that makes use of a short poem by a deceased, well-known poet.

This is a great question, since it shows how libraries not only provide access to information, but serve as patrons for the arts.  This nurtures local culture, spurs community creativity, and brings special attention to a library.

As the member points out, though, this role also comes with its own set of legal issues, including copyright concerns.

Is it permissible to create an anthology of 20-30 poems, all by British poets, to be distributed to an entire grade level of students to be used for annotation and instruction? [It’s been suggested] that "since they're all available on the internet" they should be able to printed, collected, bound, and sold to students. A few things that I am unclear on are:

I wandered lonely as a cloud…wondering “is there a way to create our own custom array of poems by Wordsworth, Keats, and Burns?”

A couple committees at the college my library is at want to present copyrighted films in the theatre as part of an educational film series. They are under the impression that as long as there is an "educational component" to the screening that it falls under fair use.

The short answer is: no, this scenario is not a “fair use.”

But that’s not the end! “Fair use”—which is found in Section 107 of the Copyright Act—is not the only exception to copyright infringement.

There is another way.  Section 110 of the Copyright Act provides:

[T]he following are not infringements of copyright:

A teacher would like to reprint a student workbook we can no longer find in print. We tried to get permission from the company that bought the publisher out, but they said they couldn’t help. At this point, can we prove that we have made a good faith effort to receive permission?

It is frustrating to know just the right resource for a class—and be unable to access enough classroom copies. 

Just as vexing is going the extra mile to seek permission to make your own…only to be told that you’ve reached a dead end.

And yet, class must go on.  We tried to ask…now can we just make those copies?