Ask the Expert Q&A 25 July – Naomi Korn, Copyright Consultant
Naomi Korn Copyright Consultant, will be answering your questions on Copyright on Friday 25 July 2014 between 3-4pm BST.
Naomi Korn Copyright Consultancy is a leading supplier of specialist copyright and rights management solutions and services including:
- Understanding, clearing and managing third party rights
- Valuing, optimising and protecting IP assets
- Developing policies and embedding processes
- Selecting suitable licences
- Staff development and training
You can post questions before the Q & A session, on 25 July, or you can converse in real time with our expert. You can use the comment box below to post a question, or you can use twitter with the hashtag #mdyask.
Comments have to be moderated, to protect the blog from spam, so if your comment doesn’t appear straight away, don’t worry. We’ll get to it as quickly as we can.
If you have a problem submitting questions, either in the comment box, or via twitter, please email your questions to gillian.waters@ymt.org.uk
If you have ideas for subjects you’d like to see us cover in future, or would like to take questions yourself, please get in contact with us and let us know.
You can find out more about Naomi’s work at www.naomikorn.com
Your Comments
Litza Juhasz |
Dear Naomi,
I have developed a series of 15 forty-five minute long lessons around one theme. These lessons allow people learning English as a foreign language to practice their skills while engaging with our collection. A university professor and his Ph.d students would like to digitalise the material so more people would have access to it. What needs to be I the agreement between the two organisations, the museum and the university and/or the individuals involved?
thank you for your assistance.
Dawn Galer |
Hi Naomi,
A donor would like to donate digital photographs of his ancestors (most of which are out of copyright) to the archive. He has published all of these online on his own website. How does this affect us using the images? Does the donor own the publication right? Is online publishing different to print publishing? If we (or an enquirer) wanted to reproduce a copy of one of the donor’s images in a publication – would we now have to seek publishing rights from the donor?
Thanks in advance.
Coinneach Shanks |
I believe this is the EU rule. If the owner donates his images to you, and confirms this in writing, copyright transfers to you. Otherwise, even if it is a donation, the copyright stays with the creator plus 70 years after death.
“A common misconception is that the owner of an artwork automatically owns the copyright in the work. Copyright remains with the artist even when the physical artwork is sold. The only way to transfer copyright ownership is in writing.”
Geraldine Roberts |
Hi Naomi
I have written a book of historical non-fiction, which will be published next year. I have included extracts from newspapers published around 200-years ago. Are there any copyright issues to consider? Eg: the Morning Chronicle ceased publication in 1864… The Times is still going.
Many thanks
Arantza Barrutia-Wood |
Hi
I wonder if you could give a brief overview of the latest changes to copyright law and how they’ll affect museums and archives please?
Thank you
Naomi Korn |
Dear Litza
if you are putting these resources together as part of your museum work, then the agreement should be between the museum and the universit
y. Really and truly you should be granting the university limited licence to use the resources for their specific purposes. There are some templates that you might like to look at on the Renaissance Yorkshire Google docs archive site that I produced a while ago with Bernard Horrocks. I’m sure YMT can provide you with an up to date
Gillian Waters |
Hi Litza,
The advice sheets are listed here https://museumdevelopmentnetwork.wordpress.com/category/resources/
And you can find the pdfs on IPR here https://docs.google.com/folderview?id=0Bx_M1cS1YkDyck1weFNIaDN0WEk
Naomi Korn |
Dear Coinneach
thank you very much for your message. Copyright will only be transferred to you, if the copyright holder explicitly transfers the copyright to you in writing. Copyright ownership remains with the copyright holder of the work, who will normally be the author of the work, (unless they are working as an employee or have transferred their rights) even if the item is given to someone else. Therefore you would need to ensure that you specifically request a transfer of copyright (or a licence) from the rights holders. Regardless of who owns the copyright, normally copyright lasts for the lifetime of the author plus 70 years – I hope that helps
Naomi Korn |
Hi Geraldine
I think that it would be unlikely unless someone lived a very long time and published when they were very very young! I think that the most likely rights issue that would arise would be possible trade mark issues in the mask heads, i.e. “The Times” which is still an active trade mark. Trade marks are interesting because they are the only IP which can remain effectively in perpetuity because they can be renewed and renewed. So, you might like to check the Intellectual Property Office http://www.ipo.gov.uk website and their online trade mark database just to make sure that you can use any mask heads like the Times in your book. If for any reason you can;t, you would need to ask permission.
Naomi Korn |
Dear Arantza
Excellent question. In brief, following the Hargreaves Review of IP, from 1 June, we have brand new exceptions to copyright. In brief and truncated:
1. Museums, Libraries and Archives can make preservation copies of their permanent collection items
2. The above can make a single copy of a digital item from their permanent collection on a dedicated terminal for walk in users to access for their research or private study purposes
3. The above can use a work for illustration for instruction purposes. the use has to be fiar dealing and non commercial
4. The above can make a whole or part of an accessible copy of a work for a disabled user as long as commercially available copies cannot be purchased
5. Lib Privilege now covers all works, a declaration only needs to be made in writing and cost recovery is not obligatory
More about these and their detailed application can be found on the IPO website http://www.ipo.gov.uk – Hargreaves section. Watch this space for a new Quotation/Parody exception due beginning of October, and wonderful Orphan Works solutions due end of Oct?
Juliana Vandegrift |
Hi Naomi,
I’m about to start an oral history project with some veterans and would like to write a book using extracts from their interviews, with their permission and ask each veteran to sign a copyright form giving permission to print their extracts. We will also be depositing the collection of interviews with our local record office at the end of the project. However, the record office asks people to sign over copyright of the interviews to the record office. Please could you share any info about how our group can carry on using the interview material for future projects and use the profit for their veteran charity. We ‘d also like to donate any profits from the book towards their veteran home. How does it all work if the copyright is passed over to the record office in order to store the collection there and make it accessible to a wider public? Many thanks, J.
Naomi Korn |
Hi Dawn
Lovely to hear from you. The gentleman in question is likely to own the reproduction rights in his photos, so the safest rule of thumb would be to see permission from him in writing for your own purposes and also to perhaps get permission from him for you to be able to sub licence any further use by anyone else via the same licence. You might want to try and even get him to transfer any copyright – which would give you complete control of the images.
Jeff Lomax |
I would like to reproduce a painting by William Hogarth in a history publication. It was painted around 1730 and is freely available on the internet. Would there be copyright issues? It is now owned by a museum.
Naomi Korn |
Hi Juliana
In order to pass the copyright of the records to the record office, instead of asking for permission from the veterans, you really need to get them to transfer their copyright. Also, you will need to consider making sure that the copyright in the sound recording is also transferred to your organisation (if not made by a member of staff), and in addition, making sure that the interviewer transfers their copyright to you too if not a member of staff.
After that, I think that you have several options:
1. Retain the copyright but offer to grant the Record Office a licence – this way you can continue to control use and also make money
2. If 1. is not possible, transfer the copyright, but negotiate a licence for yourselves to use the recordings in whatever ways you want, and at the very least, negotiate a shared royalty deal so that when the record office makes money, so do you
If you need any template consent forms to use with people you are recording, you can reuse any of the templates on the SCA IPR and Licensing Toolkit here: http://www.web2rights.com/SCAIPRModule
Naomi Korn |
Hi Jeff
Freely accessible on the internet does not necessarily mean freely usable. As images are posted all the time on the internet without permission from the owner of the work who in the case of museums, would have created the photo of the work using skill and judgement (and therefore asserted copyright in that photos), I would recommend that you contact the museum for permission.
Naomi Korn |
The detailed information about the new copyright exceptions can be found here:
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/types/hargreaves/hargreaves-copyright/hargreaves-copyright-techreview.htm
Gillian Waters |
Steph Taylor @CriticalSteph Asks Do you have a top 3 #copyright tips for digital preservation folk? #MDYASK
Naomi Korn |
Top tips for online use of your collection images
1. Make sure you understand early on how you want users to use your images (this might be imposed on you by funding terms and conditions), so that you can ensure that you seek permissions from any third party rights holders which are consistent with your uses and any user licences you grant
2. Consider the merits the new Orphan Works Licence Scheme which is being offered by the Intellectual Property Office. A little bird tells me that it will be uber cheap for non commercial online use
3. Put in place a notice and take down policy and procedure just in case you get something wrong. Being able to quickly and professionally deal with mistakes is more likely to take the heat out of any potentially tricky situations
Naomi Korn |
Thanks everyone. I hope you have found it useful. Thanks Gillian for wonderful facilitating
All best
Naomi
Gillian Waters |
Steph Taylor @CriticalSteph Has made a #Storify story of the session – “Copyright Q & A session with Naomi Korn” http://sfy.co/emzw
Thanks Steph!