Facilitating Connectivity: reducing copyright-related barriers to sharing - a presentation by Rebecca Grant at the Pararchive conference, Connecting Communities: Storytelling and the Digital Archive, Leeds, 27th March 2015. This paper focuses on the issues encountered by the DRI team regarding intellectual property, copyright and licensing while building a repository which does not own the rights to the digital content it holds; and presents some of the solutions put in place to address this challenge.

1. Rebecca Grant
Digital Archivist, Digital Repository of Ireland
Royal Irish Academy
Dr. Sandra Collins, Dr. Sharon Webb, Dr. Marta Bustillo
Facilitating Connectivity: reducing
copyright-related barriers to sharing

2. The Digital Repository of Ireland
DRI is a trusted digital repository for Humanities and
Social Sciences Data
Linking and preserving the rich data held by Irish
institutions, with a central internet access point
•Exchequer funded; HEA PRTLI 5, €5.2M
•Royal Irish Academy, Maynooth University,
Dublin Institute of Technology, National College
Of Art and Design, Trinity College Dublin, NUI Galway
•Sep 2011 – Sep 2015

3. DRI Platform
Access Preservation
Federated Archives, Storage
Discovery
App App
Linked
Logainm
*www.inspiring-ireland.ie; www.apps.dri.ie/locationLODer

4. • National Library
• National Film Archive
• National Archives
• Galleries
• Universities
• Oral History Network
• National Broadcaster
• Contemporary Music Centre
• Research funders
• Museums
• Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht
• Research Institutions
Who is our community?

5. What is copyright?
•Copyright – intrinsic, on creation. An area of Intellectual Property law
which covers original creative works including literary, dramatic,
musical and artistic works, film, sound recordings, broadcasts and the
typographical arrangement of published editions, computer software
and non-original databases, and performances.
•Copyright exists from the moment the work is created, and does not
require any registration of the work.
• Generally, copyright covers a work until 70 years after the death of its
creator.
• Original objects, digitised objects, metadata

6. Licensing, public access and Open Access
• DRI encourages publicly accessible data; Open Access where
appropriate; CC-BY licensed metadata and CC licensed objects.
• Licensing – giving permission for the use and reuse of copyrighted
material – for specific purposes, people, territories or durations.
Licensing a work does not relinquish or negate its copyright protection.
• Creative Commons provides standardised licences to allow reuse.
• Open Access is preferable for publicly funded data.
• All metadata in the Repository is given a CC-BY licence (Creative
Commons Attribution 4.0).

7. • Requirements interviews with key
stakeholders
• Discussion with DRI demonstrator
projects
Identifying IP issues in the project
dx.doi.org/10.3318/DRI.2012.1

8. Stakeholders, rights and licensing
The original depositor requires “right-click” to be disabled
Does digitisation create new copyrights?
I own the physical copy but not the copyright
The object is still under copyright, but I can’t contact the copyright holder
The copyright has probably lapsed, but I can’t identify the creator
I have business records, but the business was sold
The depositor said I could digitise, but the depositor wasn’t the creator
I recorded oral history interviews with permission, but I didn’t ask whether I can put
them online

9. Work in the Public Domain;
Digital image copyright 2015
the Board of Trinity College Dublin.
©Clarke Estate;
Digital image copyright 2015
the Board of Trinity College Dublin.
©Dominican Publications, Dublin,
www.dominicanpublications.com.
Used with permission.
Harry Clarke Studios Archive,
Trinity College Dublin

10. The DRI IP Taskforce
The aim of the IP Task Force is to identify
IP/copyright issues and concerns arising from
the demonstrator projects, and from the
ingestion and dissemination of digital content
from other organisations or owners
The TF will conduct research into best practice
in the management of IP/copyright by digital
archives, libraries etc. nationally and
internationally in order to inform its
recommendations

11. Developing legal agreements
DRI can’t respond to ad hoc queries on copyright issues, but we must facilitate
deposit of content, protection of rights and encourage reuse where
appropriate
•Organisational Manager Agreement
•Deposit terms and conditions
•End user agreement

12. Responsibilities for DRI and Depositors
The Organisational Manager:
• Has authority, on behalf of their Organisation, to deposit material in the Repository..
• Will ensure that correct rights statements, and where applicable, licensing
statements, are applied to the digital objects in the System.
• Will ensure that appropriate access permissions are applied to the digital objects in
the System
• Grants to the Repository, and to any third party nominated by the Repository, a non-
exclusive, irrevocable and perpetual licence to make available all digital objects
deposited in the System, and all ingested metadata.
The Repository:
• Will take all reasonable and lawful steps to ensure that the permissions granted by
the depositor will be enforced by the system.
•Will display the rights statements applied to digital object by the Depositor in the
System.
• Will ensure that all metadata in the Repository is publicly accessible.

13. Applying copyright statements and licenses in the
repository

14. Conclusion
• Ensure that depositors are aware of their responsibilities and the copyright status
of their own content.
• Limit liabilities for the repository in as far as possible.
• Seek legal advice!
@beck_grant
@dri_ireland
www.dri.ie
r.grant@ria.ie
www.dpassh.
dri.ie