Copyright Made Easy!

Being seen as the campus or district “expert” on copyright has always been, quite frankly, the bane of my existence as a librarian. Those laws are so complicated! Unless a particular situation is outlined to the letter in Carol Simpson’s book, Copyright for Schools, I feel very uncomfortable advising anyone what to do.

Well, it seems ALA has felt my pain! They have created a digital sliderule to help people like me (and you) figure out when and if we need to seek permission to use that book, movie, song or other work.

Just slide the arrow to the date the work was published, read the information displayed and click to get clarifying information. Copyright made simple! (via Lifehacker blog)

This entry was posted on July 21, 2008 at 11:19 am and is filed under School Libraries. Tagged: . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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2 Responses to “Copyright Made Easy!”

  1.   Cheri Says:
    July 22nd, 2008 at 8:31 am

    Mary
    This is a very helpful post and I like the sliderule. Is it legal to add this slide rule to the library website for teachers to check before using the work?

  2.   Mary Woodard Says:
    July 22nd, 2008 at 9:16 am

    I think that’s a great idea. I’m sure that’s why ALA put the tool online, so others could use it. A link on your library web site would be fine.

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