Copyright in the Real World

Jean Dryden
College of Information StudiesUniversity of MarylandRead Bio

Archival institutions have enthusiastically begun to digitize their holdings to make them more widely available via the Internet; however, in doing so, they face a number of challenging copyright issues. As yet, we know little about the operation of copyright in the digital environment, and archives and other cultural heritage institutions are seeking to develop best practices that will make their holdings more widely available while protecting the legitimate interests of rights holders. Jean Dryden will discuss the findings of her doctoral dissertation, which found that Canadian repositories' copyright practices in making their holding available online are more restrictive than copyright law envisages, both in terms of what they select for Internet access, and their attempts to control further uses of their online holdings.

In 2008, Jean Dryden joined the faculty of University of Maryland's iSchool, where she teaches in the archives, records, and information management program. Her dissertation explored the copyright practices of Canadian archival repositories in digitizing their holdings for Internet access. Her research interests include copyright in the digital environment, information law and policy, archival arrangement and description, and digital preservation, as these issues pertain to access to information.

A continuously updated schedule of talks is also available on the Digital Dialogues page.

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All talks free and open to the public. Attendees are welcome to bring their own lunches.

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