Copyright and the Web
Overview
The World Wide Web and digitisation provide wonderful opportunities to increase access to collections. However, they raise significant challenges regarding rights issues, for example, copyright infringement. New technologies present us with potential solutions to these challenges, opening up possibilities for more effective rights management and better engagement with users about rights. This course explores both the risks and the opportunities in the context of managing and interpreting collections in a digital environment.
Participants will receive practical training and advice, enabling them to start building an effective digital rights toolkit appropriate to their organisation and the challenges it faces.
Topics include: protection of digital assets; user engagement and rights issues; Web 2.0 and IPR; digital rights management; open content licensing; open source and the public domain.
The course is fully supported by Collections Trust copyright resources. Participants will receive course packs of relevant materials.
Objectives
By the end of the workshop participants will have:
- Understood the legal requirements of copyright and considered the importance of best copyright practice;
- Encountered the rights issues associated with digital surrogate and born digital materials;
- Examined options to protect rights in the digital environment;
- Reviewed the rights management sections of SPECTRUM;
- Engaged with the concept of Web 2.0 and its relationship to rights issues;
- Considered shortfalls in their own policies regarding copyright and methods of improving them;
- Have seen and used Collections Trust copyright resources.
Participants
This course is aimed at people working with collections, whether in museums, libraries, archives or other cultural heritage organisations. It is suitable for both employees and volunteers who are:
- Establishing or improving rights management procedures within their museum.
- Looking for a practical introduction to the requirements of copyright in the context of Web 2.0 technologies and user engagement.
- Developing positions on open content licensing and the deployment and development of open source software.
Training Methods
This workshop will deliver the objectives using a mix of presentations, practical exercises, group work, discussion, and one-to-one consultancy.
Preparation
Participants should have considered copyright practice within their own museums and are encouraged to bring examples of their institution's copyright issues for discussion on the day. A basic understanding of copyright is assumed. Attending the Collections Trust Copyright Essentials course is ideal preparation, but a reading list can be supplied for pre-course preparation if required.
Trainer
Collections Trust Trainer.
Length of course
1 day.

