Dear Law-Lib Readers,
Earlier this week, I posted a request for comments regarding organizational practices and policies (primarily private firms) regarding the use of copyrighted material on intranets and extranets. Although there are no definitive policies to share, the prevailing practice seems to be:
* It is irrelevant whether one is posting or linking to materials on an extranet or intranet, copyright laws must be observed. Always ask permission to post to materials or links. Never assume anything is copyright-free.
* Do not expect that because you purchased it once when you did your original search (on W or L for instance) that you can re-purpose the results on an intranet, extranet, store it on your hard drive or email it!
* Only post to links from the home page. And, even then, you may wish to ask permission to link to that site. Deep linking, even when it makes more sense, can expose you to more liability for infringement. See excellent article from Lesley Ellen Harris, "Linking Agreements" INFORMATION OUTLOOK " v.9 no.4 , April 2005, 38-39.
* Remember that most electronic subscriptions are governed by license agreements. When these license agreements are signed, they may limit what is available to you, your firm under copyright law, so review each license agreement carefully when considering linking to electronic (subscription) products.
* Your copyright policy may have many pieces depending on each title, publisher and their respective license agreements with you.
* Join the Copyright Clearance Center and review their policies and licenses. They may have a service that will fit your budget and needs of your firm.
* Firms using products like LexisNexis Publisher have reported on positive options for distributing licensed content firm-wide
* Consider working on obtaining SLA's Click University Copyright Management Certificate or enroll in another copyright certificate program http://www.sla.org/content/SLA/pressroom/pressrelease/07pr/pr2727.cfm
* Learn more about copyright law at http://www.sla.org/content/resources/inforesour/reftool/copyrtweb.cfm
* And, even more at http://www.copyright.com/media/pdfs/Copyright-Pitfalls.pdf and http://www.copyright.com/ccc/viewPage.do?pageCode=cr100-n
Thank you to the following law librarians who responded and offered suggestions, interest in the topic, and citations:
Christine Stouffer
LaJean Humphries
Carol Bannen
Judi Bikel
Beth Morey
Margaret Webster
Erenia Dominguez
Laurel Brown
Beth Mescall
Laura LaRose
Sandra Dunbar
Ryan Saltz
As usual, this community rocks!
Brenna Louzin | Librarian | HellerEhrmanLLP | 701 Fifth Avenue, Suite 6100 | Seattle, WA 98104
tel: +1.206.389.6226 | fax: +1.206.515.8815 | email: brenna.louzin@hellerehrman.com | web: www.hellerehrman.com
================================================
This email is sent by a law firm and contains information that may
be privileged and confidential. If you are not the intended recipient,
please delete the email and notify us immediately.
================================================
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Mar 06 2008 - 13:28:13 PST