Publication:

ICA Copyright Declaration

    Full details

    Authors & editors

    Publisher International Council on Archives
    Year of publication 2022 -
    Languages

    English (main text)

    Medium Digital
    Edition1
    Topics

    Arts, culture and heritage > Archives, libraries & museums

    Tags

    Scope & contentSeparate introduction

    Cultural international organizations have only observer status within WIPO, whereas member states have the voting rights on Treaties, etc. There is a very strong lobby representing commercial, published content creators influencing WIPO and too frequently protections designed to protect revenue streams of the publishers have inflicted collateral damage on cultural life.
    Accordingly:
    1. Our Primary Goal: We are arguing for the need for international action to establish a minimum level of copyright exceptions in all jurisdictions that will enable archives to make and disseminate the copies essential to fulfilling their mission.

    2. Our Target audience: This is primarily an advocacy document aimed at archival administrators, those to whom they report, associations of archives professionals, our sister professions, and copyright policy bureaucrats and lawmakers. Although it does have an educational function in a general sense, it is not intended to be a primer on institutional copyright policy and practice. Other initiatives (e.g., a mooted online copyright training module, the published checklist of exceptions for archives, new guidelines on particular topics) will address practitioners’ needs.

    3. Language: Because this is aimed outside the profession, it must avoid [archival] professional jargon. At times, it needs to use copyright terms but in as little a technical a way as possible

    4. Level of detail: Because each nation’s current copyright law is different, the document has been written at a high level, and avoids specific references to particular national law(s). Nor can it be a catalogue of all the copyright problems facing archives in all jurisdictions.
    Web URL https://www.ica.org/en/ica-copyright-declaration

    Divisions within this publication

    • 1: Archives comprise works that are subject to copyright law
    • 2: Unique quality of archives and its copyright implications
    • 3: Copyright challenges relating to born-digital and digitised archives
    • 4: Archivists as advocates for copyright change

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