Hello everyone:

First, I should introduce myself; I am a student in an online MLIS program (graduating in December), and I have also worked in the library and RIM departments of a mid-sized A/E firm for a few years. I have been lurking around the listserv for about a year, and have tried to soak in all the information that gets shared on here-it's been very helpful.

But one issue I haven't found an answer to is how copyright affects digital records. From the library point of view, I have dealt with many copyright issues. While I am definitely not a lawyer, I do know a good deal about the topic as I have read a few books on it, researched it a lot, watched webinars on it, and even helped draft our corporate copyright policy.

That said, when the RIM department at my company recently started discussing an official switch to digital records, I of course was the first to say, "But wait, COPYRIGHT! COPYRIGHT!" We started going through some of the scenarios of what types of records we might receive that would fall under copyright protection, and honestly much of it seems cut and dry. There are specific rules on architectural drawing copyrights; some of what we have are government documents that are free of copyright; and as for everything else, we should ask for permission. Of course, all that is great in theory, but then this question came up: Do we have to address every single item that we come across (that was not produced by our own staff) and ask for permission to post it on our network?

I dug through the archives of the listserv to see if there was anything that could shine a light on the issue, and didn't have much luck. There were some questions about manuals, etc. but much of it was on a smaller scale. Information Management had some articles, but most spoke to the IP rights of the creators rather than the users. I did find a book on the topic, Copyright for Archivists and Records Managers, but it was based in the UK and we are in the US, so I wasn't sure if it would be useful.

So I thought I'd turn to the experts - is there a simple answer to this? I would assume that if there is a "simple" answer, it's something along the lines of: hire a copyright lawyer and/or get a CCC license. Am I correct, or is it possible there is another way to approach this? Any resources, references or anecdotes would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance from a RIM newbie,
Beth Spencer
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Grand Rapids, MI




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