UPDATE: IPR Committee Brief: Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act

On May 2, 2018, S.1010 - Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act of 2017 (LINK) was introduced in the U.S. Senate. After being read twice, it was referred to the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration which held hearings on September 26th on the proposed bill. The Committee was to meet on December 4, 2018 to discuss and vote on S.1010; that hearing was subsequently “postponed until further notice” (1). Should the bill pass the Committee, it will go before the whole Senate for a vote. Those concerned that the proposed bill would unnecessarily politicize the role of Register of Copyrights are urging individuals to contact their Senators, telling them to vote “no” on S.1010 (2).

As a reminder, the U.S. House of Representatives passed their version of the bill: H.R.1695: Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act (LINK). This bill proposed moving the position of Register of Copyrights to a presidential appointment followed by a Senate confirmation hearing, and the House voted to approve this on April 26, 2018. Many within the library community have expressed strong concerns that this bill seeks to make the position of Register of Copyrights overtly political when the position should be serving both the rights of copyright holders and the good of the public concurrently. Numerous organizations, including the American Library Association (LINK), have expressed concern that if the position were politicized in this way, copyright terms could be unduly influenced by business and special interest groups, namely the entertainment industry. For an in-depth look at H.R.1695 as well as an analysis of the arguments both for and against the bill, please see the previous “IPR Committee Brief: Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act” (LINK).

Amy Lazet, Visual Resources Specialist, College for Creative Studies

Sources:

“LINK:”

Text of S.1010: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/senate-bill/1010?r=45

Text of H.R.1695: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1695?r=3

American Library Association Statement: http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2017/04/ala-urges-senate-reject-bill-make-register-copyrights-presidential-appointee

IPR Committee Brief: httpS://vraweb.org/ipr-committee-brief-register-of-copyrights-selection-and-accountability-act/

Citations:

1. United States Senate Committee on Rules and Administration: https://www.rules.senate.gov/hearings/s-1010
2. Electronic Frontier Foundation, “Tell the Senate Not to Put the Register of Copyrights in the Hands of the President:” https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2018/12/tell-senate-not-put-register-copyrights-hands-president

Fair Use Week is Coming!

It's that time of year again - Fair Use Week! This February 26 - March 2, the IPR committee will once again be "taking over" the VRA's social media to promote Fair Use Week and provide additional resources for those interested in learning more. You can help increase visibility of this important concept by following, liking, and sharing content from Twitter (@VisResAssn) and Facebook.If you have thoughts or know of resources related to Fair Use that you would be willing to share, let Lael Ensor-Bennett (lensor@jhu.edu) or Margaret McKee (mmckee@menil.org) know - we welcome your involvement.

IPR Committee Brief: Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act

Welcome to IPR Briefs, an occasional series in which members of the VRA’s Intellectual Property Rights Committee cover rights issues of interest to the visual resources community. In today’s Brief, Amy Lazet gives an overview of H.R. 1695, the Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act of 2017. Amy is Visual Resources Specialist at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit. Her article “The Unexplored Ethics of Copywork Image Manipulation” appeared in the October 2016 VRA Bulletin.In April 2017, bill H.R. 1695: Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act (LINK), which proposes moving the position of Register of Copyright to a presidential appointment followed by a Senate confirmation hearing, passed the U.S. House of Representatives. Reactions to the bill have been vehement; those supporting it say it will serve to modernize the Copyright Office (which should be distinct from the Library of Congress, given the Library’s mission to disseminate information freely) while those who oppose it argue that the bill is designed to serve the interests of those in the entertainment industry (namely Hollywood) and a presidential appointment will unnecessarily politicize the position.This bill is the culmination of a process that started as a “comprehensive review of U.S. copyright law” on April 24, 2013. (It is worth noting that H.R. 3261: Stop Online Piracy Act [SOPA] was introduced in 2011 and would have allowed for, among other things, companies behind websites hosting user content [think YouTube] to be held accountable for any copyright infringement by users on their sites; the bill died that same year LINK). Twenty hearings with testimony from 100 witnesses were held and a tour of Nashville, Silicon Valley, and Los Angeles allowed “creators, innovators, technology professionals, and users of copyrighted works” to give input over the next several years. Finally, comments were accepted online through January 31, 2017 (1).This information was taken into consideration by the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, chaired by Bob Goodlatte (R-Va) (list of Committee members LINK), which released a statement in December 2016 urging reform of the Copyright Office in order to “update the Office for the future.” According to the statement, “The 20th Century statutory framework for the U.S. Copyright Office is not sufficient to meet the needs of a modern 21st Century copyright system. To update the Office for the future, a significant investment of funds and changes to how the Office operates are required...Currently, the Register is not subject to the same nomination and consent process as other senior government officials. To ensure that the American people have an opportunity to provide input into the selection of future Registers of Copyright through their elected officials, the next Register and all that follow should be subject to a nomination and consent process with a 10-year term limit, subject to potential re-nomination” (2).In keeping with this statement, the bipartisan bill H.R. 1695 (LINK) was proposed by Bob Goodlatte (R-Va) and John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich) on March 23, 2017 and passed the House on April 26, 2017 by a measure of 378 to 48, with four people not voting (both Goodlatte and Conyers were co-sponsors of SOPA) (3). Of the 378 votes for the bill, 233 were Republican and 145 were Democrat. Only two Republicans voted no, while 46 Democrats did likewise; two Republicans and two Democrats abstained from voting (4).Prior to its passage, an amendment (H.Amdt. 109) was introduced by Theodore Deutch (D-Fl) that allows the Register to identify and supervise a Chief Information Officer responsible for managing information technology systems; the amendment passed by 410 to 14, with six abstaining (5). Should this bill pass the Senate and be approved by the President of the United States, it will modify Section 701 of Title 17 of the U.S. Code (text of Section 701 LINK).Currently, the Register of Copyrights is appointed by the Librarian of Congress. H.R. 1695 would change this to a presidentially-appointed position, with confirmation by the senate (a process the Librarian of Congress currently undergoes). The bill proposes the formation of a selection panel, comprising Members of Congress and the Librarian of Congress, who would submit a list of recommended individuals to the President. The President would then select a person from the list who would undergo a confirmation hearing in the Senate. The appointment would last 10 years and could be renewed by another confirmation hearing; the Register would only be able to be removed for cause (6).According to GovTrack.us, one reason for the bill is due to “court challenges to the Copyright Office's authority to issue regulations because the Copyright Office is within the Library of Congress which is a legislative branch agency and not an executive branch agency.” H.R. 1695 would resolve this issue by making the Office into an executive branch agency (7). This bill, then, “identifies important reforms to help ensure the Copyright Office keeps pace in the digital age,” according to the Judiciary Committee website (8).Many institutions have expressed their approval of the bill; support is particularly strong within the entertainment industry but proponents also include the Artist Rights Society and the Copyright Clearance Center, among many others (list of supporters of the bill LINK). The Copyright Alliance states that, “...the Register of Copyrights position is essential to the U.S. economy, creativity and culture, a status that should be acknowledged by making the role a presidential appointee subject to Senate confirmation. Making the Register a presidential appointee as provided in H.R. 1695 will not only ensure that the selection process is more neutral, balanced, and transparent but it’s also critical to the continued modernization of the U.S. Copyright Office” (9).However, many associations of libraries/librarians and academic institutions have voiced their opposition to the bill, including the American Library Association (ALA), the Consortium of College and University Media Centers, and the Library Copyright Alliance which consists of the ALA, the ALA’s Association of Research Libraries, and the ALA’s Association of College and Research Libraries. The ALA states, “As this bill moves to the Senate, ALA urges all senators to take special note of what the bill isn’t. Despite the arguments of its proponents, it isn’t related to modernization of the Copyright Office, which it will impede. It isn’t about protecting or advancing the long-term interests of all Copyright Office stakeholders, just its most powerful ones” (10). The statement released by the Library Copyright Alliance suggests that, “It's also difficult to understand how the public or Congress itself would benefit from politicization of the Register of Copyrights' position by making it subject to presidential appointment and Senate confirmation, as this legislation proposes. Such politicization of the position necessarily would result in a Register more actively engaged in policy development than in competent management and modernization” (11).One of the main concerns driving the creation and passage of this bill is that, currently, the Register is appointed by and serves under the Librarian of Congress, which is seen by some of the bill’s supporters as a negative due to libraries’ mandate to make information readily accessible. Proponents point out that the ALA is in opposition to the bill and the current Librarian of Congress, Dr. Carla Hayden, is a past president of the ALA and therefore (presumably) likely to concur with at least some of the sentiments expressed by the ALA in their statement on the topic (12).Christopher Chambers, professor of media studies at Georgetown University told NBC BLK, “Big money is at stake and the [entertainment] industry wants someone who will see its side rather than the public interest in what the Constitution says is the ‘promotion of useful Arts.’ It is no secret that the industry lobbies and donates hard, regarding Democrats and Republicans alike...This [bill] basically surrenders congressional power over intellectual property right there in the Constitution, to the Executive Branch, hence President Trump” (13).Finally, Mike Masnick, founder of Techdirt.com, points out that copyright is a moving target; historically, each time the copyright terms change within the U.S., protection is expanded. In 1976, the Copyright Act served to make copyright registration automatic (upon ideas being fixed in a medium) and extended the copyright to life plus 50 years. Prior to 1976, copyright protection only existed for 28 years after registration, with the option of a 28 year renewal. As Masnick states, “And when that term of copyright [established in 1976: life plus 50 years, for a maximum of 75 years] threatened to expire and move Mickey Mouse into the public domain, Congress rushed to Disney’s rescue and added another 20 years to make the term life plus 70 years. And it may do so again soon” (14). (No published, copyrighted works entered the public domain in the U.S. in 2017, nor will any become public domain in 2018; it is not until 2019 that the public domain in the U.S. will see new works) (15).Masnick continues, “...the Copyright Office, historically, has not welcomed of the rise of the internet. Much of the leadership of the Copyright Office over the past few decades has come out of legacy industries — publishing, recorded music, movies — that had viewed copyright as a tool to serve a few big industries. The office has been accused of systemic bias from the revolving door of industry executives and lawyers going into the office, or leaving the office to go back to those same industries. Over the past few decades, the Copyright Office has continued to expand its own role, beyond just registering and managing copyrights, to getting deeply involved in various policy debates around copyright. For example, the last register, Maria Pallante, testified to Congress in support of SOPA [Stop Online Piracy Act] while another, previous register, Ralph Oman, literally argued to an appeals court that no new content delivery technologies should be allowed without first being approved by Congress if they might, in any way, upset the copyright industries” (16).H.R. 1695 “...would effectively remove the Copyright Office from the library and remove the public interest mission of the library as a counterbalancing force on the Copyright Office and its recent one-sided focus on the law,” says Masnick. “The copyright-centric industries — who have always had an uneasy relationship with the internet — recognize one of the best ways to protect their interests is to have much more control over who will be in charge of the Copyright Office. The new bill gives the copyright industry the means to do that...The [entertainment industry] ha[s] tried to argue that by making the new Register of Copyright an office approved by the Senate, that will make it more democratic, where anyone can weigh in on the appointment and influence the Senate’s confirmation process. That would be great for the [industry] and their historic lobbying power over Congress, which is massive” (17).Because H.R. 1695 has not passed the Senate, it is not yet known how this bill will affect industries dealing with copyrighted materials, including libraries, nor how it would advance the proposed modernization of the Copyright Office. At this time, the Office is no longer accepting comments, and the passage of the bill is now in the hands of the Senators and their (potentially vocal) constituents. Even if the bill passes the Senate, the wait to ascertain how U.S. copyright would be affected by it could be long, given the process for committee nomination, appointment, and confirmation.Sources:“LINK:”Text of H.R. 1695: https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1695/textText of H.R. 3261: https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/3261Judiciary Committee Members: https://judiciary.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/115th-House-Judiciary-Committee-Updated-21517.pdfCitations:1, 9. Judiciary Committee “Copyright Review” website:https://judiciary.house.gov/issue/us-copyright-law-review/2. Judiciary Committee statement on “Reform of Copyright Office:”https://judiciary.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Copyright-Reform.pdf3. H.R. 3261 (SOPA): https://www.congress.gov/bill/112th-congress/house-bill/32614-7. H.R. 1695 (Register of Copyrights): https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1695/text8. Copyright Alliance statement: http://copyrightalliance.org/news-events/copyright-news-newsletters/compilation-register-copyrights-accountability/10. American Library Association statement:http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2017/04/ala-urges-senate-reject-bill-make-register-copyrights-presidential-appointee11. Library Copyright Alliance statement: http://www.districtdispatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/FINAL-DRAFT-LCA-Statement-re-Register-Appointment-Bill-032317PM.pdf12. Blog on “The Hill” in support of H.R. 1695: http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/politics/328189-enough-with-the-back-and-forth-hr-1695-is-a-no-brainer-get-it13. Christopher Chambers statement: http://www.lawattstimes.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4244:house-votes-to-limit-powers-of-first-black-librarian-of-congress&catid=11&Itemid=12614, 16-17. Mike Masnick statement: https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/3/15161522/mpaa-riaa-copyright-office-library-of-congress-dmca-infringement15. Resources entering the public domain in 2017:https://law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2017/pre-1976/

The Intellectual Property Powder Keg: Fair Use and Contemporary Art Museums

Employing fair use at a contemporary art museum can feel like navigating a minefield where one lives in fear not of explosions, but cease and desist letters from angry rights holders. Despite the dearth of public domain materials, there is no need for a proverbial metal detector when publishing in-copyright images, just a healthy understanding of the four factors. At the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, where I am the Rights and Images Manager, we utilize fair use in three public-facing ways:Online Collection—This online display of our 3,000-piece permanent collection is a unique record of the MCA’s collecting history, and includes exhibition and publishing material related to each object. It is a significant educational and scholarly resource that presents the MCA’s holdings to a broad online audience. Images are non-downloadable and fully attributed with tombstone and credit information.Exhibition History—Installation photography of the MCA’s past exhibitions are also hosted on the museum’s website. The images visually describe the MCA’s exhibition history dating from 1967 to the present and are low resolution, captioned, and non-downloadable. The images focus on no one object, rather they depict broad installation views for greater understanding of the exhibitions.MCA Blog: MCA DNA—The MCA’s blog is another online educational tool for visitors, which features entries by MCA staff, visiting artists, and scholars. Images on the blog help guide readers through the text. They pose no commercial threat to the objects they depict and are low resolution.Assessing fair use is challenging in the contemporary arena because one must consider relationships with living artists and contractual obligations when determining whether a use falls within the boundaries of the law. Thankfully, understanding United States Code carries considerably fewer risks than bomb detection—even when dealing with today’s most incendiary art. As institutional fair use standards continue to be tested (and uncontested), museums should begin to feel comfortable publishing past didactic materials and online collections. Today a blog post, tomorrow a banner, one day, an exhibition catalogue.Fig. 1: Home page for the MCA’s collection site. Fig. 2: Exhibition page for the MCA’s 1967 show Fantastic Drawings in Chicago Collections. Fig. 3: MCA DNA blog post about one of the MCA’s earliest commissioned pieces, Concrete Traffic (1970) by Wolf Vostell.Bonnie RosenbergMuseum of Contemporary Art, Chicago

Fair Use Week: Fair Use and Copyright in the Academic Environment

Fair Use Week 2017United States Copyright Law is a fascinating and complex topic. It protects creators AND those who teach. US copyright features a section called "Fair Use," which allows for the use of copyrighted material in the academic environment (among other things).Reams of information have been written about copyright, and a number of important court cases have further defined copyright. An equal volume has written about Fair Use, as well, especially as it pertains to teaching and research. Some useful publications about Fair Use in the Academic Environment include:

• Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries, published by the ARL (Association of Research Libraries)
• Statement on the Fair Use of Images for Teaching, Research, and Study, published by the VRA (Visual Resources Association)
• Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts, published by CAA (College Art Association)

The resources on the Fair Use Week website are also extremely interesting and informative. One of those resources is a video produced for Fair Use Week 2016, featuring Gerald Beasley, Vice Provost and Chief Librarian, who explains both Fair Use and Fair Dealing (the Canadian equivalent of Fair Use), and encourages academics to exercise their fair use of copyrighted materials.The VRA’s statement on Fair Use draws attention to the impact of Fair Use in the classroom (the use of color in the texts below is the authors).

Images are essential pedagogical and scholarly materials. They are unique objects whose meaning cannot be adequately conveyed through words or other media. Images may themselves be the object of commentary or critique. In other instances, images are used to facilitate the study of and communication about the objects they depict or document. In many cases, images serve as the only or best means by which to depict an object, providing the context or documentary evidence by which those objects can be understood. In still other instances, images are essential for comparison or contrast of multiple objects, or for other evaluative purposes.

CAA’s Code of Best Practices was developed after a 2014 Issues Report designed to assess the academic community’s practices in respect to Fair Use and copyright.The Issues Report, which was based on their interviews with 100 visual arts professionals and a survey of CAA members, reported that the practices of many professionals in the visual arts are constrained due to the pervasive perception that permissions to use third-party materials are required even where a confident exercise of fair use would be appropriate. Most commonly the decision not to rely on fair use is made by visual arts professionals themselves. Although members of the community may rely on fair use in some instances, they may self-censor in others, due to confusion, doubt, and misinformation about fair use, leading them to over-rely on permissions…. Doing so jeopardizes their ability to realize their own full potential, as well as that of the visual arts community as a whole.The Code of Best Practices also points out the difference between Fair Use and plagiarism. Sources for material used under the guidelines of Fair Use must always be cited, attributed, or identified “as is customary in the field” (p. 10). It also encourages seeking permissions when necessary—for example, in the case of a sole source controlling access to an image (p. 7).Gerald Beasley’s video and the statements by VRA and CAA underscore that arts professionals must advocate for and exercise Fair Use in their academic environments—teaching about, researching, or creating Art. Fair Use is a first amendment right and is necessary to the academic environment.Heather Seneff, MA, MLSDirector of the Visual Media CenterSchool of Art and Art HistoryUniversity of Denverhseneff@du.eduhttp://www.du.edu/ahss/art/vmc.htmlhttp://dusaahvmc.blogspot.com/

Fair Use Week: Image Sources

Copyright law is a protection for an author’s creative works, which grants rights that belong only to the creator. Fair use is an exception in that law, and an important one, enabling others to use that creative work, and making it accessible for the continued creation and dissemination of knowledge and culture.The subjective nature of weighing the four factors of copyright make it flexible; it can also be confusing when trying to decide if some use is fair or not. The visual arts community has attempted to create consensus as to how fair use might be reliably applied in practice, without creating overly restrictive guidelines that are inflexible with evolving cultural uses. Both of the recent guidelines by the College Art Association “Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts” and the Visual Resources Associate: “Statement on the Fair Use of Images for Teaching, Research, and Study” seek to reflect the longstanding practices of educational and cultural institutions in using copyrighted still images.The CAA guideline is a consensus of CAA members and other invited visual arts professionals. http://www.collegeart.org/pdf/fair-use/best-practices-fair-use-visual-arts.pdf.Section 2 addresses Teaching about Art. For teachers of art history, visual culture, and studio practices, in all settings, the use of images is central to the fulfillment of their mission. (Their students also need images for scholarship from reliable sources with good metadata.) In these contexts, fair use of copyrighted materials can be invoked within limitations: when the image clearly supports the pedagogical objective, the access to images is restricted, the image accurately represents the work depicted, and the size does not exceed what is needed for display. When displayed, an image should have an attribution, and metadata available.Where can one get good images for teaching? Licensing images from vendors, institutional subscriptions, and image database resources, are great if you are with an educational institution providing these, but if not, apart from doing original photograph or scanning from books there are many quality online sources of free copyrighted images. Museums with large collections are good places to look. The artwork will be well represented and the metadata will be accurate and complete. Museums will often allow non-commercial reuse, provided the source and author are acknowledged and will often have a “terms of use page” to consult. For example, from the J. Paul Getty Museum “For records with images, a combination of copyright status and available image quality determines the final image display size on the collection website. The Museum publishes thumbnail-size images of copyrighted works for which it does not have a license to reproduce under fair use. All available images include embedded metadata, accessible under file properties or file information.” http://bit.ly/2krgAMlTime is one limitation in the copyright law. A work will lose copyright protection after a certain length of time and then go into the public domain where it is free to be used by everyone. The CAA code is not needed for images in the Public Domain because they are no longer protected by copyright and may be used without regard for it. A number of museums in the 21st century are choosing (CC0) Creative Commons Zero (Public Domain Dedication) to govern the use and reuse of images in their collection making public domain artworks available for free and unrestricted use worldwide. This move away from tiered pricing for high quality images enables museums to realize a core goal: to get the collection out and known to a new audience.The Metropolitan Museum of Art just announced that more than 375,000 images of artworks are available for free and unrestricted use under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) http://bit.ly/2looZgaThe Rijksmuseum chose (CC0) Public Domain Dedication for sharing its high quality true-color digital images and metadata about the works in its collection. They actively seek to have people reuse images of artwork in their collection through their annual Rijksstudio competition, where members of the public are invited to collect, download images and create their own artwork. http://bit.ly/1aHqdfz Check out the top 75 entries from 2015 http://bit.ly/2lMID9nCreative Commons licenses are not all the same. They are legal tools that let creators and rights holders offer certain rights while reserving others. When museums grant these CC licenses you need to be aware of any restrictions place on your usage of the image through any of the six main licenses https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/licensing-types-examples/ Always look at the terms of use page for any museum whose artworks you seek to use.Several sites using Creative Commons licenses to share images:

• Internet Archive Book Images on Flickr Commons https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/
• Images with "No Known Copyright Restrictions" in The Commons on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/commons
• List of open collections from Open GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museum) https://openglam.org/
• Wellcome Images Collection https://wellcomeimages.org/ note: changes in use as of April 2017 https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/page/News.html
• Wikimedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Images

Here are some museums and libraries with free downloadable images. Note differences in Creative Commons licenses used.

• Bodlein Library http://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/ Terms of use: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
• The British Museum http://www.britishmuseum.org/  Terms of use:http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx
• The Cleveland Art Museum http://www.clevelandart.org  Terms of use: All text and images published in www.clevelandart.org are for personal use only. Any commercial use or publication is strictly prohibited.
• The Frick Collection http://www.frick.org/ This site is for personal, educational, non-commercial use only and may not be reproduced in any form without the express permission of The Frick Collection.
• The J. Paul Getty Museum: Open Content Program (would like a source credit in caption) http://bit.ly/2krgAMl) http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/
• Los Angeles County Museum http://www.lacma.org/ Nearly 20,000 images of artworks the museum believes to be in the public domain are available to download on this site Terms of use: http://www.lacma.org/about/contact-us/terms-use
• Louvre (Photographs credited © RMN, Musee du Louvre are the property of the RMN. Non-commercial reuse is authorized, provided the source and author are acknowledged.
• The National Gallery, London https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/ 2,300 free downloads. Terms of use: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
• The New York Public Library https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/  Terms of use: https://www.nypl.org/help/about-nypl/legal-notices/website-terms-and-conditions. Low Resolution Files (Only Non-Commercial Uses Allowed).  Materials downloaded from the NYPL Websites may only be used for personal, educational, or research purposes.  They may not be used for commercial purposes.
• Victoria and Albert Museum http://collections.vam.ac.uk/  (can download a low res image)Terms of use: non-commercial use:  https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/terms-of-use#3
• The Walters Art Gallery https://thewalters.org/ works of art download site: http://art.thewalters.org/ The Creative Commons License the Walters has chosen to use is explained in more detail at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/.
• World Images, database of Images from California State University IMAGE Project http://image.calstate.edu/ Images are free when used for non-profit educational purposes, with appropriate credit given to the copyright holders who retain all rights to the images.

Many contemporary and artists early in their careers do not have museum representation, so finding images and videos to use in teaching requires looking in other places. Try the artist’s own website (not a fan’s web site). Here are some other good places to start.

• Art21 the companion website to the Art21 TV show on PBS, promotes artists of the 21st century by chronicling the artists at work through video, interviews and exploration of new artistic ideas.
• Art Babble website that displays high quality art-related video content from more than 50 cultural institutions from around the world.
• ArtNet Founded in 1989, and online since 1995, artnet is the leading resource for the international art market, and the principal platform for art auctions on the Internet. We offer a wide range of art market resources, providing a place for people in the art world to buy, sell, and research Fine Art, Design, and Decorative Art.  ArtNet News frequently does lists of who to watch. For example Millennial Artists to Watch in 2016 https://news.artnet.com/art-world/millennial-artists-to-watch-2016-644570
• ArtSlant You can narrow down to a specific city or look at worldwide listings. They have an artists A-Z list too
• Artsy  features the world’s leading galleries, museum collections, foundations, artist estates, art fairs, and benefit auctions, all in one place. A growing database of 300,000 images of art, architecture, and design by 40,000 artists spans historical, modern, and contemporary works, and includes the largest online database of contemporary art.
• E-Flux Journal  is a publishing platform and archive, artist project, curatorial platform, and enterprise, which was founded in 1998. Its news digest, events, exhibitions, schools, journal, books, and the art projects produced and/or disseminated by e-flux describe strains of critical discourse surrounding contemporary art, culture, and theory internationally.
• Hyperallergic Archives Sensitive to Art and its Discontents “Hyperallergic is a forum for playful, serious, and radical perspectives on art and culture in the world today.”
• UBS Planet Art (free app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/planet-art-your-source-for/id937737095?mt=8 ) “The world’s definitive source of art news and information. Planet Art is your personal guide to the contemporary art world, bringing news from a range of leading publications, institutions, and influencers together in one convenient, beautiful app. Better understanding of the art world is just a tap away."
• Bomb magazine: “BOMB Magazine has been publishing conversations between artists of all disciplines since 1981. BOMB's founders—New York City based artists and writers—created BOMB because they saw a disparity between the way artists talked about their work among themselves and the way critics described it.”
• Universes in Universe: Worlds of Art  A global online resource

Kathy EvansPurdue University

Fair Use Week

The Intellectual Property Rights committee will be taking over the VRA's social media accounts during Fair Use Week February 20–24 to promote fair use resources and practices and to drum up support for fair use. Follow along with us  @VisResAssn  and https://www.facebook.com/VisualResourcesAssociation!If you'd like to get involved with the all the posting and liking, there's still room and time to participate! Please email Lael Ensor (lensor@jhu.edu) or Bridget Madden (bridgetm@uchicago.edu) for more information.