I’ve been thinking about what kind of media I would like to include in my map and I realized that I going to have to deal with a familiar foe: Copyright.
I’m planning on visiting the Creative Time Archive in the Fales Special Collections Library and hoping to find some photographs and videos of public art projects that are long gone. According to their website, I’ll have to get permission to use the resources from the director and even after that copyright restrictions still apply. I know that none of the artists I’m looking at have been dead for more than 70 years, so definitely not public domain yet. I also need to think about who holds the copyright for the photos and videos. Perhaps the archive now holds those rights?
I also want to document public art projects that are accessible today. Surely these works are also copyrighted, but since I can photograph or tape them in a public place that should OK, right?
And what about fair use for scholarship? I was doing research and came across this guide from the Center for for Social Media at American University:
“Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Scholarly Research in Communication”
According to them, everything I want to use–as long as it’s not to excess–is fair game. So do I stand up and declare fair use or not?
One Comment
1 shannon wrote:
Great questions, Mary. The Center for Social Media is a great place to start! You might remember that we talked a bit about Critical Commons in class a few weeks ago; one of their function is to provide “information about current copyright law and its alternatives in order to facilitate the writing and dissemination of best practices and fair use guidelines for scholarly and creative communities.” I’d also recommend that you take a look at the “Reduce Intellectual Property Constraints” section on p. 24 of the Scholarly Communication Institute report. See also the Society for Cinema and Media Studies’ best practices document.