Help Us Bring the Fair Use Code to Life — Join a Discussion Group!
Graeme Slaght
Hello SPN community,
(Apologies for cross-posting!)
Many of us are familiar with the Code of Best Practices for Fair Use in Software Preservation, but how often do we apply its recommendations in our day-to-day work?
The Law & Policy Working Group is motivated to bridge that gap. We're planning to build more context for the five teaching and research-oriented “situations” outlined in the Code, potentially through case studies, so SPN practitioners can more efficiently evaluate and practice fair use in their own work.
To begin this work, we’d like to create discussion groups for the guide so SPN community members can meet up to discuss each of the five situations, identify instances where practitioners have examples of those situation in their work, reflect on how the copyright landscape has changed since the guide was published in 2018, and consider possibilities for how we might build resources alongside the Code of Best Practices for Fair Use in Software Preservation that illustrate the report’s recommendations in practice.
If you are interested in potentially joining this series of discussion groups, please fill out this linked form by Thursday, May 22nd. Your responses will help us gauge interest and shape the format of the discussions.
For reference, the situations outlined in the Code are the following:
Situation 1: Accessioning, stabilizing, evaluating, and describing digital objects
Situation 2: Documenting software in operation and making that documentation available
Situation 3: Providing access to software for use in research, teaching, and learning
Situation 4: Providing broader networked access to software maintained and shared across multiple collections or institutions
Situation 5: Preserving files expressed in source code and other human-readable formats
We look forward to discussing the guide with you all! Please reach out to Graeme at graeme...@utoronto.ca if you have any specific questions or comments about these upcoming groups.
All best,
Claire Fox
Brandon Butler
Andrew Borman
Kyle Courtney
Ana Enriquez
Raven Lanier
Phil Salvador
Graeme Slaght (On behalf of the SPN Law & Policy Working Group)
Graeme Slaght | he/him
Acting Head, Scholarly Communications & Copyright Office
University of Toronto Libraries