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Re: use of postcards on a commercial website



I am grateful to Peter for his comments.   I phrased my
original sentence awkwardly....I did not mean to imply that
we were violating copyrights...what I meant was that our
status as a public university did not change copyright
status or enforcement of copyright for materials in our
possession.   More and more folks are saying that if a
record is held by a public agency, then it must be a public
record, or that somehow the copyright status of an item
is altered by becoming owned by a public agency.

This seems to be more and more a major myth and the
Internet seems to be helping fuel this.  I have been deluged
with requests of individuals, organizations, and others who
want to wholesale copy portions of our collections "to put
them up on the Internet"... when I point out that these items
are either copyrighted, or that our institution cannot make
copies or grant permission for publication because we don't
have these rights, the requestors don't understand this.

Many argue that since we are public university and permit
public access to primary research materials, that we are also
under obligation to copy anything and everything for the user,
for the user to do with whatever.   It's a frustrating environment,
some days.

Dean

Dean DeBolt
University Librarian
Special Collections and West Florida Archives
John C. Pace Library
University of West Florida
11000 University Parkway
Pensacola, FL  32514-5750
Tele:  850-474-2213;   Fax:  850-474-3338

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