Purdue’s Donna Ferullo Co-Authors Book on Copyright Management in Academic Libraries

August 29th, 2023

Copyright issues continue to perplex librarians and educators. The difficulties and confusion in applying the U.S. Copyright Act became especially apparent during the Covid-19 pandemic when many universities turned to remote learning as their primary method of instruction. Librarians and educators struggled with applying the law for both remote learners and those students present on campus. A new book written and edited by Donna Ferullo, director of the University Copyright Office, and Dwayne Buttler of the University of Louisville, provides advice on how to analyze and apply the copyright law to specific areas encountered by librarians and instructors. 

“Copyright: Best Practices for Academic Libraries” is published through Rowman & Littlefield Publishers and will be available in print and e-book versions in September. Contributors include experts from Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, the Library of Congress, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, the University of Virginia, Yale University, and more. The hardback version is available for pre-order. 

The book also offers best practices for the application of copyright law to new technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and non-fungible tokens (NFT). New technologies pose unique challenges in ways that have never been envisioned before. AI, which is becoming increasingly sophisticated, simulates human intelligence, making it difficult to distinguish between what was created by human beings versus what was created by a machine. Ferullo examines software applications such as ChatGPT, which is widely used by students as an accelerator for their homework creation and then passing it off as their own work. For such scenarios, the book offers advice on how much human input is needed for works created by AI to be eligible for copyright. 

“’Copyright’ finally offers a plain-language guide to best practices for the complex world of copyright management in academic libraries that will help facilitate the work of librarians nationwide. Dwayne Buttler and I had the honor to collaborate with a number of other experts on topics such as remote learning do’s and don’ts, the application of copyright to music, data and text mining, and open access initiatives. In the book, we examine these issues and provide step-by-step guidelines and options for their implementation in academia,” explained Ferullo, who has been advising Purdue on copyright law since 2000. 

To place a pre-order, visit: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538168219/Copyright-Best-Practices-for-Academic-Libraries