Copyright and Digital Preservation: Legal and Administrative Issues

Abstract

In today’s information landscape, there are fewer topics that more urgently demand expansive discourse than digital preservation, which touches on everything from technology to copyright. The Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS) steps up to the challenge with this comprehensive overview. Global in scope, it features case studies and contributions that discuss key digitization issues. Academic librarians, technical services staff, technologists, and administrators will all benefit from this incisive collection. This chapter will identify the copyright issues most commonly encountered in digital preservation projects and outline best practices for addressing them in a way that balances the rights of the creators with the legal exemptions granted to libraries, archives, and museums under U.S. Copyright Law. The chapter will include workflows and tools that can be used to work through copyright issues and sample copyright policies and forms. It will also touch upon other areas of intellectual property that these institutions may need to consider as part of digital preservation projects.