Copyright -- the right to make copies of a work, particularly copies for distribution or sale -- is created when a work is "fixed in a tangible medium." The author of a text (or the creator of art work, a photographer, a musician, etc.) owns this right and can rent, lease or license it, make it a gift to another person or institution, and otherwise treat it as owned property. The intent of copyright is to encourage the creation of new works of art, literature and technology by assuring their creator time in which to exploit them commercially. The laws designed to protect copyright in texts, photographs, art works, sound recordings, films and videotapes, and other "intellectual property" are based in centuries-old common law and have become complex.
There are two related concepts it is important to understand: property rights and "fair use" of copyrighted materials.
A person or an institution may buy or otherwise acquire a "work fixed in a tangible medium" and thereby own the physical object -- the letter, the draft of a story or a report, a book or other publication, a photograph, a CD-ROM. By doing so the person or institution does not thereby acquire any part of the author's or creator's copyright -- i.e., the right to create further copies. Nonetheless, individuals and institutions do have rights to sell, donate, circulate, loan -- or destroy -- the actual property they own. Donors to libraries sometimes place conditions on access to materials they give, often to protect the privacy of individuals who may be named or described in them. While libraries resist these restrictions, preservation of important materials may require they accept and honor them. Some vendors, particularly of electronic or digital materials, may also restrict access to their products to protect their copyright (and income).
Copyright law thus provides copyright holders with a monopoly -- but a monopoly with two limitations. First, to encourage intellectual, cultural and economic growth, the law permits "fair use" of copyrighted material. "Fair use" is a "fuzzy" idea, not a specific list of "dos and don'ts." For a full explanation of the fair use provisions, click here to go the Copyright Office's website (http://www.loc.gov/copyright/) where you will find a full statement of the law and other advisory documents. Briefly, the law permits generous, but not entirely unrestricted, use of materials for the kinds of purposes typical of scholarship and library reseach. The University of Iowa Libraries urges scholars and researchers to understand and exercise fully their "fair use" rights.
Second, the copyright monopoly does not last forever. Eventually the copyright passes into the "public domain" and anyone who chooses to do so can make and sell or distribute copies.
The United States copyright law which took effect on January 1, 1978, established a single system of statutory protection for all copyrightable works, whether published or unpublished. For works created after January 1, 1978, the law provided a term lasting for the author's life, plus an additional 50 years after the author's death. This was extended to 70 years by the Sonny Bono Term Extension Act, PL 105-298, passed in 1998.
For unpublished works that were already in existence on January 1, 1978, the acts generally provide automatic federal copyright protection for the same terms provided for new works. However, all works in this category are guaranteed at least 45 years of statutory protection; the law specifies that in no case will copyright in a work of this sort expire before December 31, 2002, and if the work is published before that date the term is extended by another 45 years, through the end of 2047.
This rather complex set of requirements assures that materials that were published in 1922 or earlier are now in the public domain. The considerations for unpublished materials and materials published in 1923 or later have been reduced by University of North Carolina law professor Lolly Gasaway to a very useful chart which is posted at http://www.unc.edu/~unclng/public-d.htm.
To quote material in excess of "fair use" in another publication -- i.e., to quote in whole or "substantial" part from unpublished manuscript or other copyrighted material -- and avoid possible litigation, permission must normally be secured from the author or his/her heirs or executors. A online database, Writers And Their Copyright Holders, (http://www.lib.utexas.edu/hrc/watch.html) will help to identify the executors of many novelists, poets and artists.
As custodians of the physical objects, the University of Iowa Libraries exercise a property right and condition access to manuscripts and other primary source materials in either print or electronic formats with an understanding that readers will seek the Libraries' permission to publish substantial portions of materials they are permitted to use, whether copyright to those materials is owned by the Libraries or by someone else. The University may elect in some cases to collect or negotiate use fees. Direct requests for permission to publish to the staff of the Special Collections Department, University of Iowa Libraries. (lib-spec@uiowa.edu)
rev 2/2000