Thanks to Digitization 101’s post [1] I learned about the Copyright Slider. A creation of the ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) – you can find more official information over on ALA’s Washington Office blog (Let the OITP Copyright Slider Answer Your Questions! [2]) and order one of your own for only a bit more than $5 (less if you order in bulk).
The Copyright Slider lets you answer questions such as (quoting the post linked to above):
- Is a work in the public domain?
- Do you need permission to use it?
- When does copyright expire?
Here is their example of how it might be used:
A library in rural Pennsylvania is digitizing its local historical collection on the copper mining industry in the region. One of the collection texts, Memoirs of a Copper Miner, was published in 1953 and is still protected by copyright. Or is it? Align the black arrow on the slide-chart to materials published between 1923 and 1963 and discover that works originally published in the U.S. between 1923 and 1977 without a copyright symbol are in the public domain! Memoirs of a Copper Miner was published in 1953 and does not have a copyright symbol. Let the digitizing begin!
This looks like a dandy little tool to have in your desk drawer and I plan to order one sometime soon.
My next question is how hard would it be to make a slick flash version of this that could live online and be updated as copyright rules change?
Image Credit: A cropped version of a photo from the District Dispatch blog post [2] quoted above.
Comments Disabled To "Copyright Slider: Quick Easy Access to Copyright Laws and Guidelines"
#1 Comment By Dan Cohen On April 9, 2008 @ 8:54 am
For $5 less why not just print out the nice-looking, kept-up-to-date Cornell web page for this:
[3]
Also note that it’s the “maybes” that are the killers, and no chart can help you there.
#2 Comment By Jeanne On April 10, 2008 @ 12:05 am
Dan,
Thanks for reminding me of that page! I especially love the footnotes. Not only do they provide pointers to sources for all the rules listed – but they also give another level of detail and hints for interpreting the rules. Take note 3 for example which reads:
Jeanne
#3 Pingback By Online Interactive U.S. Copyright Slider – SpellboundBlog.com – spellbound by archival science and information technology in the digital age On August 2, 2008 @ 11:10 pm
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