A consideration of copyright for a national repository of humanities and social science data

Abstract

In 2011 the Digital Repository of Ireland (DRI) began work on the development of an interactive national Trusted Digital Repository for contemporary and historical social and cultural data. Copyright and intellectual property rights were identified as essential areas which the DRI, as a content holder and data publisher, needed to investigate in order to develop workflows, policy and the Repository infrastructure. We established a Copyright and IP Task Force (CIPT) in January 2013 to capture and identify IP challenges from our stakeholder community and the DRI’s demonstrator collections. This report outlines the legislative context in which the CIPT worked, and how the CIPT addressed copyright challenges through the development of policies and a robust framework of legal documentation for the Repository. We also provide a case study on Orphan Works, detailing the process undertaken by the Clarke Stained Glass Studios Collection, one of DRI’s demonstrator projects, in preparing their content for online publication in the Repository.