(IP) Problems in the permanent retention of electronic records
Pat Galloway’s course, INF 392K – Problems in Permanent Retention of Electronic Records currently has a very interesting project in which they are attempting to create a digital institutional repository, likely using DSpace.
I sat in on part of the course this morning because I was interested in the copyright issues associated with the project. The project is not only going to digitaize the School of Information web site, but also wishes to digitize faculty information, including publications.
Here are just a few of the questions that were raised:
1. Can a faculty member sign over typical fair use rights or the right to archive their work?
2. How does the existence of such a contract affect section 108 exemptions?
3. Does the section 108 exemption apply to institutional repositories such as this that are not necessarily associated with the official UT Libraries or other traditional archival institutions?
4. In issues of joint authorship, what kinds of permissions are necessary from the authors before including their works in such a repository, when the secondary author may not have a connection to the institution? (This became more of an ethical question than a legal question.)
5. Is placing a document online in this manner “publication” for purposes of evaluating exclusive publishing contracts?
6. What kinds of authorization restrictions need to be made available for this type of archiving, and does a “born digital” object have different requirements then a digitized object?
There were more, but those are a start.