2 Focus Area 2: Obtain Permission
Determining the copyright status of the digital materials you will make available online can seem daunting, but there are tools available to help you assess your organization’s risks and responsibilities. Before you get started, think about the following:
- Owning a physical item does not necessarily mean you hold the copyright to that item.
- Digitizing an item does not change its copyright status or create a new copyright.
- Regardless of copyright status, there may be ethical and privacy considerations about how items are displayed or used.
Obtain permissions: bronze level
| Key Activities |
|---|
| - Adopt a deed of gift form that includes language about online access to digitized and born-digital streaming content, downloading, and re-use (or update existing deed of gift form). |
| - If creating new digital content, such as oral history interviews, use a permission form that includes language about online access (or update existing permission form). |
Donor Agreements
Does your deed of gift form include specific language about digitizing and sharing donated items online? Be aware that a donor can transfer copyright to you with a donation only if they are the copyright holder.
If you don’t already use a deed of gift form, donor agreement, or gift agreement, now is a great time to adopt one. Now is also a good time to dig through your files, physical and digital, to find existing documentation that will shed any light on the status of permissions or agreements in your collections. Did past archivists, volunteers, or donors contribute notes or forms documenting how materials could be used or shared in the future?
Forms and other documentation should be kept with the related collection materials, either physically or digitally. For instance, you could save a signed donor agreement in a “Copyright” subfolder in the collection to which it applies. You can also write out the information you have in a text file and save it with the collection or the digital materials.
“Digital donations,” in which cultural heritage organizations scan photos, scrapbooks or other materials for community members and keep the digital files but return the originals to the owner, are becoming more common. So are crowdsourced or community-sourced collections, in which community members contribute their own writings or artwork to a shared digital collection. A signed deed of gift or permission form is needed in these scenarios too.
While we can’t give you legal advice on collection donations, below are several examples you can borrow from and customize for your needs.
| Deed of Gift Examples |
|---|
| Deed of Gift, Wisconsin Historical Society |
| Loan for Digitization Purposes, Rock County Historical Society (Janesville, Wisconsin) |
| Sample Deed of Gift, Sustainable Heritage Network |
Permission Forms
A permission form, also known as a release form or consent form, is needed whenever your organization works with community members to crea