A Light-Hearted Approach to Unraveling Copyright Conundrums: Copyright Principles, Decision Frameworks, Workflows, and the Case for Sharing

Term: Summer 2025

Date: May 20th, 2025

Time: 2:00pm - 3:30pm

Location: Newman Library Room 427 & Online

Instructor: Anita Walz

Presented By: University Libraries (LIB)

Description:

Join this session to explore copyright frameworks and workflows for thinking through almost any U.S. copyright question. Covering common questions as asked by educators and authors 1) Can I use this? and sometimes 2) What is the impact of my work and my copyright decisions on others? This session works through these questions in two parts. Part I of this presentation uses a six-principles-of copyright approach and real-world examples, walking attendees through copyright basics in a memorable way using real world examples. Part II of the presentation presents a decision-making framework for analyzing U.S. copyright questions, highlighting particular paths toward legal usage, including: Creative Commons licenses, permission, leveraging existing terms-of-use, and Fair Use. The interactive nature of this presentation will provoke reflection, a deeper understanding of copyright-related options and how to think about copyright, and will ask copyright owners to consider approaches that make their original works more useful and usable to others.