Many museums and art libraries have digitized their collections of artworks. Digital imaging capabilities represent a significant development in the academic study of art, and they enhance the availability of art images to the public at large. The possible uses of these images are likewise...

National libraries throughout the world generally hold the strongest collection of publications from their home countries and build a rich variety of information services from the collections. To be sure of developing such a national collection for current and future use, the libraries must...

In recent years, the number of bills revising the U.S. Copyright Act has increased, the duration of copyright protection has grown, exceptions to rights under copyright law have been substantially altered, and the law has made abrupt deviations from customary trends and radical diversions from...

The flexibility that Congress infused into fair use allows it to be restructured and adapted for the unpredictable scope of future needs. That flexibility also can lead to narrow interpretations of the law. A line of cases focusing on the unpublished character of the copyrighted material appear...

Through the last few decades, Congress has rendered much of the law of copyright duration a confusing and chaotic patchwork of rules that are often irreconcilable and simply unworkable. One can learn the rules, of course, but the rules often depend on multiple variables and facts that are...

The relative uncertainty about the meaning of fair use has led various interested parties to develop interpretative “guidelines,” notably for the application to teaching, learning, and librarianship. The best known of these guidelines are the Classroom Guidelines of 1976, which allow...

Museums face steady demand for images of artworks from their collections, and they typically provide a service of making and delivering high-resolution images of art. The images are often intellectually essential for scholarly study and teaching, and they are sometimes economically valuable for...