ICA’s Section for Archives of Literature and Art (SLA) has taken a particular interest in copyright issues over the past ten years, and has worked jointly with other groups, notably the Diasporic Literary Archives Network, on copyright matters. Literary archives present typically more copyright challenges than many types of institutional archives, especially in respect of large correspondence collections which can have hundreds or even thousands of copyright holders in a single archival fonds. As a result, keeping involved in copyright issues has been a priority for the SLA.
With this background in view, WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization, based in Geneva), as part of its consideration of possible copyright exceptions and limitations for archives, invited the SLA President David Sutton to prepare a background paper entitled Archives and Copyright, and to present it to the meeting of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights in early April 2019.
You can download David Sutton’s background paper on Archives and Copyright in either DOCX or PDF formats.
View video of David Sutton presenting the paper at the WIPO Assembly during the morning session of Thursday 4 April 2019.