Draft a copyright term check worksheet for a school library's digitization or reuse requests
Takes a list of works a librarian wants to digitize or reuse (title, author, creation and first publication dates, whether it is a work made for hire) and drafts a worksheet that applies the U.S. Copyright Office duration rules: for works created on or after Jan 1, 1978, protection generally lasts the author's life plus 70 years; for anonymous, pseudonymous or work-made-for-hire works, 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first; works first published before 1978 vary and are flagged for review under chapter 3 of the Copyright Act and Circular 15A rather than calculated. Each row gets a status of likely expired, likely protected, or needs review, with the rule applied and missing facts named.
Human in the loop: Librarian confirms every date and decides on use; anything marked needs review goes to the district's copyright contact. The workflow never declares a work public domain. Limits: Not legal advice. Pre-1978 works, foreign works and unknown authorship are the hard cases and are always flagged. Fair use is a separate question and links to the existing fair use guide (aed-uc-139). No student work or data as inputs. Methodology 1.0: Strong candidate for replay.
How to run: Draft a copyright term check worksheet for a school library's digitization or reuse requests
- Takes a list of works a librarian wants to digitize or reuse (title, author, creation and first publication dates, whether it is a work made for hire) and drafts a worksheet that applies the U.S. Copyright Office duration rules: for works created on or after Jan 1, 1978, protection generally lasts the author's life plus 70 years; for anonymous, pseudonymous or work-made-for-hire works, 95 years from first publication or 120 years from creation, whichever expires first; works first published before 1978 vary and are flagged for review under chapter 3 of the Copyright Act and Circular 15A rather than calculated. Each row gets a status of likely expired, likely protected, or needs review, with the rule applied and missing facts named.
- Librarian confirms every date and decides on use; anything marked needs review goes to the district's copyright contact. The workflow never declares a work public domain.
- Not legal advice. Pre-1978 works, foreign works and unknown authorship are the hard cases and are always flagged. Fair use is a separate question and links to the existing fair use guide (aed-uc-139). No student work or data as inputs.