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Rights Management Policy


Rights Policies for the Publication of and Access to Digital Works: Digitized Collections and Digital Publishing

Summary

This document describes intellectual property policies to govern the resources that Dartmouth College Library digitizes or publishes as part of its digital publishing program. The policies developed here are consonant with the Library’s expressed goals for a more open, user-friendly information ecosystem that acknowledges creative and scholarly effort, respects intellectual ownership, and creates structure for use.

There are common elements to all categories of works described below. These are:

  1. Respect for and adherence to U.S. copyright law
  2. Assertion of rights to use copyrighted information to the fullest extent provided by law, including all exceptions to the exclusive rights of copyright holders such as Fair Use.
  3. Author retention of copyright
  4. Assertion of Dartmouth College copyright or trademark (where appropriate) for work produced by the Library, typically metadata, work done to create the digital "home" or web site on which a resource resides, and the logos and marks of the College Licenses for use that enable limited permissible uses by other parties without case-by-case intervention by the Library.

Statement of Scope

 This document outlines Dartmouth College Library’s policies for the protection and uses of intellectual property published through the Library’s digital publishing and digitization programs. As a service organization that supports Dartmouth College’s mission in part through the provision of intellectual property, chiefly published scholarship and creative works, in support of teaching, learning, research, and clinical practice to the Dartmouth community and its affiliates, the Library has a commitment to uphold existing law, to advocate for the broadest access to information in service to scholarship, and to engage in activities that accomplish these goals. The Library’s publishing and digitization programs are such activities. Intellectual property policies that govern these programs must therefore be consonant with the Library’s values and mission.

These policies cover copyright, permissions, and terms of use for the intellectual property published by the Dartmouth College Library through the Dartmouth Digital Library Programs, including Digitized Collections and Digital Publishing. The Library provides digital versions of its rich collections and archives to advance teaching, learning, scholarship, and in celebration of the “Dartmouth experience”. The Library acts as a non-profit, open access publisher that makes its publications available to the public at large free of charge. The Dartmouth College Library does not make any claim of rights to works where others hold the copyright or the works are in the public domain. The Library affirms copyright, including fair use, and makes reasonable efforts to locate rights holders and negotiate mutually acceptable terms of publication.

These policies do not include print publications published by or on behalf of the Library or digital surrogates of works made exclusively for 17 US Code § 108 uses. Digital resources licensed from external sources (e.g., library databases) are excluded as well.

This document shall be posted on the Internet for review by any interested party.

A.  Copyright Policies

For all of its publications, the Library is acknowledged as the publisher of and the Trustees of Dartmouth College hold the copyright to the “look and feel” of its publications. “Look and feel” is defined as all of the visual and audio elements, navigation, underlying file structure, programming, scripting, or other elements created by the Library to support the display of and access to the publication. Visual elements as understood in these policies do not include the logos, marks, and brands of the Library and the College, as these are not available for use by other parties without special permission.

All original metadata created by the Library for its publications shall be made available for further use under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial license.

1. Original publications

a. Scholarly journals. The Library is acknowledged as the publisher and the Trustees of Dartmouth College hold the copyright to any journal of which it is the original publisher. The Library makes its intellectual property available for further use under Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial licenses. Copyright to individual articles, editorials, and reviews rests with authors.

b. Journal transfers.The Library may from time to time and at its sole discretion choose to offer publishing services to a scholarly journal previously published by another entity. The Library recognizes that extant journals have preexisting intellectual property policies; however, as the Library strongly supports open access, this may be a deciding factor in a final decision to become the publisher of a transferred journal. Also, the Library should only offer publication when it can reasonably assume responsibility for associated tasks, including but not limited to the collection of subscription fees and royalties and permissions management. 

c. Monographs. A monograph, for purposes of this policy, may be any stand-alone work of creative expression (including but not limited to visual works, audio works, textual works, or any combination of these) created by one or more persons. The Library is acknowledged as the publisher and the Trustees of Dartmouth College hold the copyright to the “look and feel” of an original monograph, as well as to any content created by the Library. Copyright to the monographic content rests with the author(s). The Library makes its intellectual property as expressed in original works available for further use under Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial licenses

d. Archives and Manuscripts Archives and manuscripts are defined as original, usually unpublished documents, either individual or part of a collection (manuscript collection or archives) that can include a wide variety of formats including, but not limited to correspondence, diaries, scrapbooks, accounts, photographic and audio records. The Library is acknowledged as the publisher and the Trustees of Dartmouth College hold the copyright to the "look and feel" of digital surrogates of archives and manuscripts published has part of the Digital Library Program. In the instance where the Trustees of Dartmouth College do not hold copyright to specific archives or manuscripts that are not in the public domain, the Library will make a good faith effort to determine the copyright holder and seek permission to republish those materials in digital form.

2. Digital editions of previously published printed works now in the public domain

The Library is acknowledged as the publisher and the Trustees of Dartmouth College hold the copyright to the “look and feel” of digital editions it publishes of printed works in the public domain, where the look and feel is original to the digital edition, as well as to any content created by the Library that is included in the digital edition. Copyright to new original content, such as forwards to the edition, critical apparatus, editorial annotations, etc., rests with the authors of the content. The Library makes its intellectual property as expressed in digital editions of public domain works available for further use under Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial licenses.

3. Digital editions of previously published printed works under copyright, including “orphan” works

The Library may from time to time find compelling reasons to seek to publish digital editions of works under copyright. The Library makes reasonable efforts to locate rights holders and negotiate mutually acceptable terms of publication. 

a. Works with a known, living rights holder.The Library will make repeated (if necessary) attempts to contact the rights holder of a work it wishes to publish digitally. A request for permission to publish shall be of an “opt-in” nature; that is, no publication will be made without the rights holder’s consent. Should the rights holder require terms of use, including but not limited to royalties per use that the Library cannot reasonably accommodate or wish to accommodate, the Library will not publish the work. Nothing in the aforementioned should be construed to limit the Library’s exercise of fair use and other limitations on or exceptions to copyright, including but not limited to provisions on resource sharing by libraries and exemption of certain performances and displays in non-profit education.

b. Works with a deceased or unidentified rights holder.The Library will make repeated (if necessary) attempts to identify and contact the rights holder of a work it wishes to publish digitally. If the rights holder cannot be identified after reasonable attempts to do so, the Library will create a digital edition of the work in good faith and make this accessible via the Internet with a visually discernable statement of rights and takedown policy. These are defined as follows:

      • Good faith means that the Library has no reason to believe that the rights holder, if one exists, will or has previously objected to such publication. If the Library has in its possession correspondence that affirms that the rights holder, if deceased, previously denied the Library permission to publish or could reasonably be assumed to deny permission, or if the Library may reasonably be expected to know of such a statement, the Library will not publish the work while it remains in copyright. Nothing in the aforementioned should be construed to limit the Library’s exercise of fair use and other limitations on or exceptions to copyright, including but not limited to provisions on resource sharing by libraries and exemption of certain performances and displays in non-profit education.

      • Statement of rights means that the Library will post notice that the publication is believed to be under copyright and that possible current rights holders remain unidentified. This policy will make clear that the Library makes no claim to any rights and that it cannot give permission for further use. 

      •  See the takedown policy on the Dartmouth Digital Library Program rights page for the procedures to follow if a rights holder wants to request that an item be removed from the public view.

 4. Digital publications of previously unpublished works now in the public domain

The Library is acknowledged as the publisher and the Trustees of Dartmouth College hold the copyright to the “look and feel” of digital editions it publishes of previously unpublished works now in the public domain, where the look and feel is original to the digital edition, as well as to any content created by the Library that is included in the digital edition. Copyright to new original content, such as forwards to the edition, critical apparatus, editorial annotations, etc., rests with the authors of the content. The Library makes its intellectual property as expressed in digital editions of public domain works available for further use under Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial licenses.

For clarity of understanding, pursuant to 17 US Code § 303, all unpublished works that were not registered with the US Copyright Office in advance of January 1, 1978 by authors who died before January 1, 1933 are now considered to be in the public domain. 

5. Collections of discrete objects
For collections that contain discrete and disparate objects with a variety of rights holders or with objects with unknown rights holders, the Library will identify rights holders if that information is readily available.
The take down notice is available in cases where rights holders identify themselves and wish to have
objects removed from public view.

B. Requirements for authors to obtain permission to include copyrighted material in their publications

Due to copyright law, copyright to any ancillary materials for this digital publication (including but not limited to visual materials, audio files, and extracts of text) quoted or otherwise included in a new creative work remains with the copyright holders of these works. Authors are expected to review the permissions they have to date, as those may cover digital versions. If not, authors are expected to obtain all permissions for such inclusions, unless the use qualifies as fair use, or the materials carry a Creative Commons license that indicates permitted use.

C. Preference for use of Creative Commons Licenses 

The Library strongly urges, but does not require, that authors who publish their creative work express permitted uses under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial license. Authors who choose to make their content available under other licensing options must manage all requests for permissions to use their work.

Because of the importance of intellectual property rights, and because the Library cannot reasonably assume responsibility to police the use of works made accessible via the Internet to the public at large, original authors must indicate how they wish to exercise their copyright in writing before the Library makes their work available online. Forms for this use should be created and made available to all authors. Authors of comments to blog posts or other mechanisms through which the public is invited to comment on any content are considered to make their work available under the overarching Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial license for the work. Notice of such disposition of rights is to be posted on any comments form.

D. Terms of Use

Publications of the Library’s Publishing Program and materials made available through the Library’s Digitization Program will carry a Terms of Use statement, which indicates intellectual property status and, in the case of works published under Creative Commons license, the uses to which the work may be put without further permission.

1. The preferred expression of Terms of Use will be a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License. This requires attribution to the Dartmouth College Library and the author(s) and creator(s) of the works, and a link to the Creative Commons license attached to that particular work. 

2. If no Creative Commons license is used, US copyright law is in force. No copyright statements should be construed to limit the user’s exercise of fair use and other limitations on or exceptions to copyright, including but not limited to provisions on resource sharing by libraries and exemption of certain performances and displays in non-profit education.

3. Materials in the public domain will be indicated as such.


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1 Digital Preservation Coalition, 2009

2 (JISC, Digital Preservation Coalition, Digital Archives Department of the University of London Computer Centre, Portico, 2009) 

3 (AHDS, 2003) 

4 (ICPSR, 2007)

5 Consultative Committee for Space Data Systems, 2002

6 Library of Congress, 2008

7 OCLC; The Center for Research Libraries, 2007


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