Finding the Public Domain: The Copyright Review Management System

Authors

Melissa Levine, University of Michigan

Date of this Version

10-26-2016

Document Type

Article

Citation

ISSUE BRIEF, Ithaka S+R, October 26, 2016.

http://www.sr.ithaka.org/publications/finding-the-public-domain/?cid=eml_sr_public_domain_10_2016

Comments

Copyright 2016 ITHAKA. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Abstract

Historically, copyright review has been uncoordinated and has taken place on a modest scale. The Copyright Review Management System (CRMS) changes that. 1 CRMS was supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services over three National Leadership Grants. It was led by the University of Michigan in collaboration with 19 other highly dedicated research libraries. Together, we developed a system to train and coordinate reviewers to assess the copyright status of digitized books held in the HathiTrust Digital Library. Over the course of the three interrelated grants that make up the CRMS project, we developed expertise in managing a large collaborative project.

The project team documented these lessons in a book called Finding the Public Domain: Copyright Review Management System Toolkit.2 The Toolkit shares practical insights gained in this effort in the hope of supporting others interested in copyright review. This brief complements the practical toolkit. It explains the history of CRMS and introduces the basics of the CRMS procedure. It then discusses some of the lessons, successes, surprises, and challenges of the work.