Question: A donor gave us her unpublished papers and correspondence. We want to digitize and make it available online. Does copyright let us do this if we own the papers?
Answer: Simply owning a physical copy of a work does not mean you also own the copyright. Most archives ask donors to sign a contract transferring ownership of the papers. Check to see if the donor transfers copyright over the papers to you. If the library or archives owns the copyright, you can do anything you like (assuming the contract does not have any restrictions). Depending on how old or thorough your donor contract is, it may not mention digitization. If this is the case, then you can make three copies for preservation purposes under section 108(b). Those copies cannot be accessible outside the library building. If you want to make the papers publicly available online, you will need to get permission from the donor or her heirs.
Question: A faculty member wants me to post her journal article in our digital repository, but the copyright notice on the article says the publisher is the copyright owner. Can I post the article?
Answer: Sometimes publishers ask authors to assign the copyright in the article to the publisher through a copyright transfer agreement. So the first thing you need to find out is if the author signed one of those forms. If she didn’t, or the form she signed didn’t transfer her copyright and doesn’t otherwise prohibit republication, then you are in the clear.
Even if she did sign a copyright transfer agreement, posting the article may be possible. Many publishers permit online posting by the author’s institution as long as proper attribution (e.g., author, journal title, and page number) is given or after an embargo (usually six months to three years). These policies can be found on the copyright form, in the publisher’s copyright policy (sometimes called an author rights policy), or by asking the publisher. A very useful resource is SHERPA/RoMEO, a database of publisher copyright policies.[1]
Doing this kind of investigation for each article can get time-consuming, so educating authors about copyright and encouraging them to save their copyright forms can be very helpful. Some institutions also encourage
