For our first meeting of 2024 we were joined by Danielle Steinhart, a Copyright Specialist from the Office of Scholarly Communications and Copyright at Penn State. To begin with she outlined the definition and aims of copyright protections, specifically related to copyright law in the United States. She also covered some distinctions between what type of material can be copyrighted and what can’t, such as a generic list of restaurants versus a blog post covering an individual’s favorite restaurants. Copyrighted material is also not protected forever, as works before certain years (currently 1925) have entered the public domain.

When it comes to the intersection between copyright and accessibility, Danielle made the point to say making sure something is accessible can sometimes trump certain copyright considerations, but accessibility does not give you an excuse to ignore copyright law. For example, if you don’t already have permission to use copyrighted material in a course, such as a document or a video, making the content accessible such as remediating the document or adding captions to the video does not give you permission in and of itself to use it. However, if you already have permission to use certain materials, altering them in ways to make them more accessible may be considered fair use. But she could not give legal advice and emphasized that every situation may be different and should be evaluated on a case by case basis.

After the presentation, there were several great questions and discussions had between Danielle and group members asking about different situations where copyright law might clash with accessibility. If you would like to learn more about how you can ensure you are offering accessible materials while following copyright law, we encourage you to view the February 2024 meeting recording, and you can reach out to the Office of Scholarly Communications and Copyright if you have any questions.

For more information you can also check out Danielle’s slides.