 Okay, I think it's time to get started. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Cliff Lynch I'm the director of the Coalition for Networked Information and You've reached one of the last few of the project briefing sessions for the spring 2020 virtual CNI member meeting which is going to be running through the end of this week and And today we have a topic that I think is Probably even more timely than when this presentation was first proposed It's dealing with some of the issues involved in sharing digital content through international networks of cultural memory organizations and I think that one of the things that's very clear from the recent pandemic is International travel is going to be a lot less frictionless and a lot more complicated for some indeterminate period of time to come and to that extent Scholars who often have had the ability to travel to examine Materials in archives libraries and museums abroad are going to have to rely on digital surrogates of that material so I believe there is going to be increased emphasis on this kind of International content sharing as part of the response and adaptation to the current pandemic So I'm delighted to have this presentation and I think it's very timely We'll have two presenters today Nancy Weiss the general counsel at the Institute of Museum and Library Studies and Melissa Levine who is the director of the Copyright Office at the University of Michigan library and a long-standing Friend of CNI Who's worked on many interesting projects over the years and I'm delighted to welcome her back with us Nancy and Melissa will do their presentation and then Diane Goldenberg Hart from CNI will moderate Q&A There is a Q&A tool at the bottom of your screen and you can use that to open up a box Where you can put in questions at any point? We'll take we'll address all the questions at the end of the session, but I'd encourage you as questions occur to you during the presentation To go ahead and put them in so that we have them ready to go when we get to the Q&A I'll also just note the chat box on the side of your screen We'll be using that to share some URLs of interest as the presentation proceeds and With that, I think all that's left for me to do is thank you again for joining us and Express a special thanks to Nancy and Melissa for coming today to Share their research and thinking on this with us. So with that over to you Nancy Thank you so much Cliff and and yes, we're seeing such an interesting moment in the delivery of Library and museum and archival services throughout the nation and in connection with international partners. So I just Wanted to talk with Melissa about An exploration that we're doing about how our museums libraries and archives are engaging in cross-border projects and What kinds of issues are they working through and what kinds of issues are coming up as we're in this In this networked environment So just I'm gonna give a little bit of as they used to say pause for station Identification some background about why we're doing this So I am a less of course is the primary source of federal support for our nation's libraries archives and museums And the agency plays an important role in supporting the delivery of Museum library and information services both through domestic networks But also under our statute through International networks and we know that that's a key part of the delivery of services By law the director of I am a last his primary responsibility in the federal government for the development and implementation of Policy and practices to ensure the availability of museum library and information services adequate to meet the essential information research economic cultural and civic needs of the people of the United States So in addition to providing funding through our grant programs for a variety of learning community engagement Collections care and other innovative projects. I am a law I am less also Conducts and publishes research reports and studies trends and convenes conversations Um, and including one that we started back in September and we're hoping to continue today So since the inception of the agency I am less is supported a range of copyright related research and resources as well as projects that require Significant engagement on copyright related issues So we've observed that many of these projects have cross-border components that are necessary for the delivery of effective services We've also been engaged in a variety of other initiatives to facilitate cross-border activities We spent a decade actually working on the Marrakesh Treaty thinking about how to exchange special format materials and An observation is that at times thinking about cross-border issues tends to be a bit theoretical for us I mean, that's actually an example of where there were very practical Issues, but in the discussion they tend to be focused on a high level And so given our support in this area It seemed like a really fitting time to take a moment and pause and get a sense of really what's happening on the ground In connection with those projects that have cross-border aspects So Melissa's going to talk a little bit about the kinds of things that we looked at when we looked across Grants that I am less is funded Over the last approximately 15 years as well as a conversation that we started as I mentioned before in September Bringing together grant recipients and some experts in the area to do a deep dive of what is happening On the ground right now With museums libraries and archives that are navigating cross-border projects. So with that kind of introduction I want to turn it over to Melissa Okay. Thank you. Um, so before I Dive if you say dive, um Into some of the examples that have come up in our conversations I wanted to echo uh, some of Cliff's comments a moment ago We really of course were not thinking about the implications of a global pandemic when we put either this project or this proposal together And I wanted to mention a report from cni's executive roundtable series that was just published this month based on a meeting in um April called what happens to the continuity and future of the research enterprise and one of the Passages I wanted to note that it specifically notes that it's important to understand and that there'll be more to say about um the issues around libraries museums and archives being treated as laboratories of humanists Um, and many kinds of social scientists and that the The the comments that he made about continuity of access to physical Uh shifting are going to be an important part of this. So I just want to mention that report Okay a few examples. Um Of course, I wanted to mention I'm sorry. Yes This is dianna. Your audio is going in and out a little bit. I wonder if I'm gonna your video Uh, okay. Nancy if you cut your video, we can reduce the load a little. Thanks Is that better? So far is that better? Okay. Good. All right. Great. I want to start with something called the cyber thought collective, which is a history of science and technology It's a portal project that is a collaboration between several academic units at the University of Illinois and three other institutions and it is a archival records portal Uh regarding materials vital to the exploration of cybernetic history It includes archives at the british library the american philosophical society and mit um, they digitized archival records related to Uh The cybernetics and um Had support from the NEH to do so and to develop a prototype web portal an analysis extension Um to provide access to archival material related to the development of iconic and multidisciplinary field of cybernetics I mentioned this one in particular because of its size which is a common issue for uh Uh archives and the global scale. So you have materials Created by an exchange between Um scientists in different countries. The collections are in different countries. Um, The correspondence of records involves over 159 000 authors from four institutions um It spans several decades worth of material and it is exactly the kind of uh digital scholarship work That's much in demand. Um A couple Other notes about this project The copyright decisions for the american participants were supplemented and supported by fair use And the kinds of copyright exceptions we are familiar with for libraries and archives um The person I spoke with said that broadly this kind of material because of its size and its unpublished nature Does not lend itself to licensing or the kinds of or extended collective licensing So that the exceptions that we rely on like fair use are extremely important in the american context For partners in other Countries particularly in this example in the uk The strategy was to limit the scope of its participation to the correspondence of just one individual Rather than many in part because of the absence the uk of fair use or similar limitations This their strategy helped address them Helped them address copyright, but it narrowed their contribution and reduced the scope and impact of the project as a result Um, the second uh project that I want to mention is called pharaohs Pharaohs is an international consortium of 14 european and north american art historical photo archives That are committed to creating a digital research platform to allow For a comprehensive Consolidated access to photo archive images across And scholarly documentation across their respective institutions So, uh, this involves the Yale Center for British art is one of the uh 14 members of pharaohs um They have uh 25 million images from six countries including the us england france germany italy and the netherlands The group's working through their copyright questions in the context of developing presenting their collections through what they aspire to be A freely available common digital platform for research on images and works of art They're evaluating how to also approach layers of intellectual property that may exist in any given image Uh, it could be things like copyright Uh in the that that may be it associated with an object that's photographed writes in the photograph itself um, and in some cases photos were taken in Private homes and are subject to contracts related to the privacy of the of the the owner Um The key thing is that these are collections from all over the world with partners from all over the world that are trying to Uh provide a single point of entry and access globally The third project I want to mention is a fairly new area in preservation preservation is a it's a theme that came up Uh comes up repeatedly In particular, this this is the software preservation network or spin um The preservation and international differences in copyright law were common concern among in many of the conversations that we had um For spin is a coordinated distributed effort to ensure long-term access to software through community engagement infrastructure support infrastructure support, excuse me and knowledge generation This project led with support from edukopia and is uh a uniquely interdisciplinary initiative with colleagues from design firms public libraries history of computing museums And they're they're the the the consortious belief is that software should be curated and preserved because it is both a dependency to access to existing digital data data And because it has an intrinsic cultural value due to its mediating role in our lives It is also critical information infrastructure uh The the interdisciplinarity of the the project is reflected by its participants who include everything from Legal scholars and practitioners to digital preservation specialists meta data specialists data curators digital conservators knowledge managers archivists software developers and data journalists Um spin is interesting to me because it fills a particular vacuum in preservation policy and practice um The participants are primarily american there is one canadian member um and uh software preservation and For most preservation actually requires making copies to get software off of fragile and outdated media um In our conversations about spin it's We see that contracts and licenses are perceived to have a negative impact on preservation concerns in other words software licenses um are perceived to uh Prohibit copying for these kinds of purposes whether whether they do or not I want to mention briefly write statements.org and uh out of copyright Uh Which is an EU project write statements.org is uh an effort to bring together experts from around the world to design stable uri Um to describe the copyright status or copyright information of particular objects or collections Um with the idea that these this is geared for the cultural community and is meant to facilitate use and reuse Um, these are not licenses. It's not like creative commons. They don't grant any rights. They merely describe the project and I mentioned this because the there's a growing um It started as a transatlantic, uh initiative And is growing to to participants from around the world and has has increasing uptake The last one in this series that I wanted to mention was out of copyright. This is a sort of a Duration copyright calculator That was available from from the european union published in 2011 by europeana it because of changes in the EU copyright law It's been tabled for now And uh, I mentioned this because it was a terrific project, but it it Evidences that one of the challenges of having uh, uh simplistic tools That are also subject to changes in the law over time okay Final two, uh examples. I want to mention are uh from the digging into data uh grants, uh Made available from the NEH and the IMLS um This is a series of grants that recognizes the ways that digital tools have changed the way researchers and institutions work together um The scope and scale the questions about copyright in the international context and for cultural organizations And the way these these issues of intensified um This is a the digging into data grants are particularly interesting because they require melissa We seem to have lost you okay Nancy can you hear me? Yeah, the digging into data projects are really interesting because they actually require international collaboration and so um So, you know, they really are the sort of learning lab for a lot of the issues that we've been talking about um and I think uh in terms of Uh what when melissa might want to say about this is that? Oh dear am I still on? Yes, you are on Give me just one second Is melissa back um Okay in any event um But you know in terms of the the in things interesting about this particular project is that it involves um scanning a lot of material that is you know thousands and thousands of years old and in the public domain But still raises numerous questions about who owns rut rights and what is being um What arrangements are being made between the international collaborators? um While we're talking Um, I think you know, we really are beginning to see some some general trends and one is that These international collaborations although we've sort of been in this space for some decades now and are getting there even more um We are finding Institutions very reluctant to take them on because they do require some complex analysis of Of intellectual property and copyright rights. So there are some institutions that have have told us That they just haven't been able to be successful with some of these projects as an agency IMLS has actually been putting a lot of support into developing a variety of toolkits And also building the capacity of museums and libraries and archives to carry out The kinds of analyses that are necessary and what we've really seen is that this is a moment perhaps to amplify some of those materials, but um But we we are somewhat concerned about the frustrations that people are having Because obviously this is limiting the capacity to engage in museum library archival services I think one thing is that we do have a call For this community, which is we would like to know more about any projects that you're working on and the kinds of issues that are coming up um, and as we continue to evaluate this area and think about the kinds of Uh resources that we can put towards it With our last few minutes, uh, happy to engage in some conversation uh, so I am Not seeing melissa on yet Can you see my screen? Yes, okay So there we are general situations is where we are. Okay um, oops There you go right here. Oh got it. What we're seeing is right. There's different access to the same materials in different countries um for us universities or projects with offices abroad So for example, there are some some projects that we've been looking at where Depending on whether you're in the u.s. Or in france, for example, they'll have different access to materials even though it is the same educational partnership and project um Talked very briefly about the issue of who controls reproductions of public domain materials or antiquities and we're also seeing Where there are some different types of gaps in the ways that countries treat um museum library and archival services. So um You know, we are continuing to be in that place where we really are trying to develop some of the best practices and resources But again, you know, we're going to be in this environment. Uh, melissa says that her internet is in and out Okay, okay, but at least she is chatting so Melissa, I think I tried to Uh channel you a little bit. Um, but again, uh, we think that we're we're at the beginning of this And we really would like to have as many examples as we possibly can because We are beginning to see some trends that we think Are really important to address With very uh specific examples where possible Okay, great. Thank you Thanks, nancy. Um Let's see melissa. Is there anything you'd like to um add to that before we No, I think I think we have a Little under 10 minutes left and I think it would be fantastic if there are questions or comments or Anything else that the the audience wants to share with us Okay, terrific. Uh, so we do actually have a question that's come in from howard beser. Hi, howard. Great Um, and first off, he wants you to know melissa. He's sorry that you weren't able to finish Um, nancy, could you clarify which country's laws apply? For example, a work created in europe but housed in a u.s. Collection Does fair use apply and doesn't matter whether the user is coming from the u.s. Or another country Yeah, so i'm going to actually pass that over to melissa to talk about one of the project a couple of the projects that we were looking at So there were there's a this is a this is a very common um problem in a lot of the projects that i've worked on howard as you know, we I you sort of Use the law for where you are like, where is your work? Where's your? server and so forth um But this tension is becoming one of the um Biggest challenges and one of my greatest areas of of interest particularly for things like um hotty trust or like the ferros example Where we'd really like to have digital access globally Both the materials that are physically all over the world if they exist in a physical format and a mail log format Um, and there's not a good answer to the question you're asking as as as you know, and that's where um, I I'd like to see some movement in terms of what is expected of us as cultural institutions um and the ways in which the Geographic nature and national nature of our laws do not intersect very well with the expectations of research today I think you knew the answer to that because Howard certainly does and I think that is the challenge I do feel like you know, we have a little bit more flexibility within the united states um and I think uh, that's Definitely one of the challenges that we're seeing in any type of partnership I will say that Fair use comes up in most if not all the conversations involving american participants and a general gratitude for the leeway that fair use provides us is a legal and equitable doctrine and the wish that There were similar tools available in Other countries. There are a few other countries, but uh, not many Well, that's really interesting. Thank you. Thanks for that question. Howard, even if you knew the answer to it Well, a lot of us did not Um So please feel free to type in your questions and also if you would like to ask a question Or make a comment live if you've encountered This kind of a situation before or if you're in a similar situation and you're having to parse the options This would be a good time to chat with folks who have First-hand experience and knowledge about it. So if you want to make a comment or ask a question live Just raise your hand and I can unmute you and give you the opportunity to do that There's four being here and sharing this really interesting information with us And thank our attendees for being here and much for being here We hope to see you back at another CNI webinar very soon. And thank you very much