There is no copyright protection for ideas or concepts as such. Copyright protection applies to all original literary works.
The author of the letter is normally the first owner of copyright in their literary work. Sign in Register. News Guardian. Recent queries. Send a query. Lucky dip. Any answers? Nooks and crannies.
The restaurant might be happy to give permission and enjoy the exposure. Then again, they may take offense. Question: At a recent conference I asked a workshop leader also an attorney this question and was shocked at the answer. I am writing a memoir about a love affair I had when I was young, and it quotes liberally from letters written to me by my lover.
I thought that things given to me become my property. Answer: Sadly, the attorney is correct. On an emotional level, I agree with you that letters are gifts, but the law takes a different view. The physical letters belong to you, but your ownership of the letters does not give you the right to publish the words in the letter.
The copyright to the words, and the exclusive right to publish those words, belong to the writer, your ex-lover. This question has been the source of some legal battles, typically when the letter writer or letter user is famous and the publication of the letters generates some money. In one scene, a character tells another character a joke. I wrote this joke specifically for the book. Is there anything I can do to help prove that I wrote the joke on my own for the book?
Kind of an odd question, hope you can help. Same with photos. You do not have to prove that you wrote the joke independently. The other side has the burden of proving that you copied their work.
And proving copyright infringement of something like a joke would be a tough case for them to win. First, in order for someone to win an infringement action, they would have to demonstrate that the original materials were protected by copyright.
Short jokes are not typically protected, particularly if they are obvious. Next, they would have to show you had access to the material and copied it.
Copying can be shown if there is so much similarity that independent creation seems unlikely as decided by a jury. If he gave permission for the archives to use the reproduction and make it available to other researchers, including to right to reproduce it, then, clearly, there is no problem in doing so.
But if the work is a journal article for which the faculty member transferred the copyright to the publisher, and if the faculty author or a third party delivered a photocopy or digital copy of the article to the archives, the archives has no reproduction rights.
If the library owned a copy of the journal itself, then the library may make copies under the conditions specified in section The photocopy could be used by researchers and it might even be fair use for that researcher to make a copy of the copy.
Section does not grant the archives itself the right to make copies from the photocopy, however. Letters and other unpublished documents present a different situation entirely.
Unpublished works are still covered by copyright, but, section b permits libraries and archives to reproduce unpublished works for purposes such as preservation, security or deposit for research in another library.
So, if the archival collection has a photocopy of the unpublished work, how was that reproduction obtained? If from the author, the author's transfer agreement to the library prevails. If it came from another library that holds the original, the assumption is that it was a copy deposited under section b and that for fair use purposes, a researcher could duplicate the photocopy. Correspondence should be treated as any other unpublished work.
There is no reason for a library to refrain from making a single copy of correspondence at the request of a user who intends to make a fair use of the letter unless the deed of gift requires confidentiality or contains some other restriction.
Some archival collections require users to certify that they intend to use the unpublished work for scholarship and research.
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