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CLIS Research Seminar Series

February 05, 2008 @ 10-11 Am
"Copyright in the Real World: The Impact of Copyright on Making Archival Material Available on the Internet"

Jean Dryden
Information Studies, University of Toronto

Tuesday, February 5, 2008, 10-11 am
Room 2119 Hornbake Building, South Wing

Abstract

Copyright law is often said to be a balance between obtaining a just reward for the creator, and promoting the public interest by encouraging the creation and dissemination of works. Serving the public interest is also at the heart of the mandate of archival repositories to acquire, preserve and make available material of enduring value. The Internet provides an opportunity to make archival material more widely available; however, repositories’ copyright practices in making their holdings available online may affect the extent to which wider access to archival material is actually achieved. The presentation discusses an exploratory study that investigated the impact of copyright law on the practices of Canadian repositories in making their archival holdings available on the Internet to see whether their copyright practices are more or less restrictive than copyright law requires. Based on repositories’ website content, questionnaire responses, and interviews with repository staff members, the study found that repositories’ practices in making their holdings available online were, overall, more restrictive than copyright law envisages, both in terms of selection for online access and in terms of attempts to control further uses of their online holdings. As yet, we know little about how cultural heritage institutions (and those who use their holdings) operate within the constraints of copyright, particularly in the digital environment. This study opens a number of avenues for further investigation of the role of copyright in public information policy, particularly as it relates to archival material, including comparative studies of the copyright practices of different types of repositories and within different copyright regimes, the copyright aspects of the ongoing preservation of digital objects, and how users of archival holdings respond to the copyright information provided by archival repositories.

About the speaker

Jean Dryden is currently a doctoral candidate in the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation investigates the impact of copyright on making archival material available on the Internet. Her expertise in copyright has been developed over many years of experience as an archivist at the National Archives of Canada, the Provincial Archives of Alberta, and as the Chief Archivist of the United Church of Canada/Victoria University Archives. In 1998, she established a consultancy to advise institutions, organizations, and individuals regarding current and emerging copyright issues. She is the author of Demystifying Copyright: A Researcher's Guide to Copyright in Canadian Libraries and Archives. She has taught Archives Administration at the University of Western Ontario, and Records Management and Legal Issues for Information Professionals at the University of Toronto.