{"id":40,"date":"2012-02-03T12:03:55","date_gmt":"2012-02-03T12:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/observingthe80s\/?p=40"},"modified":"2012-02-21T12:12:40","modified_gmt":"2012-02-21T12:12:40","slug":"copyright-and-permissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/observingthe80s\/2012\/02\/03\/copyright-and-permissions\/","title":{"rendered":"Copyright and permissions"},"content":{"rendered":"

We plan to publish material from Mass Observation<\/a> (MO) correspondents who wrote in the 1980s and interviewees whose oral history records are held at the British Library<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We were initially optimistic about not needing permission for publishing MO material, as the MO Archive already had copyright assigned by some correspondents, while others had signed various permission sheets. \u00a0As MO is an on-going project, we wanted to do the right thing and not risk reputational damage or put off any current or future contributors, so our approach needed to be pragmatic and low risk.<\/p>\n

We spoke with Naomi Korn from JISC’s IPR<\/a> consultancy who proved really helpful.\u00a0 Her view was that the assigned copyright did not mean that correspondents had waived their moral rights in their material, and that if we were going to make it openly available for re-purposing we should seek permission.<\/p>\n

We identified approximately 90 MO correspondents who had written in the 1980s, and were still writing and easily contactable.\u00a0 After reviewing their material for suitability, we decided to seek permission from all<\/em> of them.\u00a0 Potentially this gives us a large enough sample to draw on, while doing away with the need to track down people who are no longer writing, which would be time-consuming, costly and potentially fruitless.<\/p>\n

In late January MO sent out letters with an information sheet explaining the project and the Creative Commons licence under which material will be published. \u00a0So far we\u2019ve had a good response.<\/p>\n

Our other population is people who have contributed oral history interviews to the British Library<\/a>.\u00a0 Many of them have assigned copyright permission to the British Library and some material is openly available to British Library users.\u00a0 For others the copyright is held by a third party, such as the BBC, and for yet others it is unclear.\u00a0 The British Library Oral History Curator and Director of National Life Stories, Rob Perks, has extensive experience and we discussed the appropriate approach.\u00a0 He takes the view that where the British Library holds copyright we will not need to seek further permission.\u00a0 Again this is based on both pragmatism and the level of risk with which we, and the British Library, are comfortable.\u00a0 Depending on our final selection of material we may have to seek permission from some, but not others.<\/p>\n

Having talked to other projects about their specific copyright challenges, there seem to be a couple of key things to bear in mind:<\/p>\n