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Copyright and digital libraries

 Copyright

Copyright is a set of legislative right that gives permission to people that create content and those that they give permission to use their content(Banerjee and Reese, 2018).Copyright is essential in the functioning of digital libraries. Copyright laws applies both on digital materials and hardcopy materials. Digital materials for digital libraries are sold which license agreement which specify the terms of use.

copyright explained.


What is protected under copyright?
Book

Copyright protects artistic work, literary work, musical work, films, recordings and computer programs. Only tangible works are protected by copyright. 

Who owns copyright?

Teng (2017), says copyright is owned and granted to the author who created the copyright material.For someone to get a copyright they must have created or written something

Importance of copyright

Copyright assist in ensuring that creators of work are rewarded for their work and as they get rewarded it encourages them to make their work available to the public.Moreover, copyright guides users on how to use copyrighted work. 

Each and every country has its own copyright laws that apply to different types of work and their duration differ. Creators of digital libraries and repositories should be aware of the copyright laws to avoid infringing the copyrights unknowingly.
It is the responsibility of the content provider to protect objects in the digital library and repository in regard to the license terms as provided by the creator of an object. Digital library content creators  can use stand rights as they make things easier for users to know what they can and cannot do with the digital resources obtained from the digital libraries and those licenses can be processed by harvester, search engines and softwares.

 
Copyright Act no 98 of 1978 governs the copyright in South Africa. For a content creator to obtain a copyright for their work, they first have to register their work. The copyright Act no 98 of 1978 apply to computer programs, literary works, broadcast, films, photographs, paintings, drawings and architecture works.

Before objects are used in the digital libraries, the creator of the digital library has to obtain an authorization from the copyright holder before making their content available in the digital library. An authorization is obtained through a license agreement.The duration of the copyright differ depending on the type of work. It is very important as a digital library user to assume that content available online is copyrighted.

A lot of resources in digital libraries and repositories are accessed free of charge.For materials to be available freely, they need to be published under creative commons license. It is of great importance for digital libraries creators and administrators to be aware of copyright laws as the deal with copyrighted materials  and they have a huge responsibility to take care and make materials accessible to their users(Cornish, 2019).Materials written, expressed in graphic for or recorded. 

All digital materials are distributed or sold with license agreement, and that license specify the number of pages that can be copied or be converted into a hardcopy. Digital materials are more restricted than the hardcopy in terms of what can be done with them (Jonnson, 2013).For example an electronic book cannot be transferred to another person as a gift unless the copyright owner gave the permission to the purchaser. However, fair dealings exceptions apply to research or study.

summary of three categories of metadata

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