Copyright Ownership to Historical Contents in the Open Access Repository (OAR) – Case Study of Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) Repository

Abstract

In this paper we discuss the various steps followed while creating an open access repository of historical material available at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics using DSpace. While uploading these materials we have come across various copyright issues, which are not clearly addressed by the Indian copyright act of 1957. Moreover the Indian copyright act pertaining to digital contents is still not complete to include the historical contents. Some of these issues are understood in the context of copyright laws prevalent in other countries. Archival collections of IIA Open Access Repository are classified under the communities; (1) Archival collections, (2) Research papers in journals where IIA is the publisher (3) News paper clippings, (4) Photographs. This paper mainly elaborates on the procedure followed according to the ownership of the materials available with us and also those, which are transferred to us by the relatives of the original authors. The procedures also include the efforts made to trace the possible owners of the contents for copyright clearance. This paper also focuses on the basic principle, that holding an archival material does not automatically give the library copyright ownership. It creates an awareness among library personnel regarding the legal aspects of archiving historical contents like old newspaper cuttings, photographs, letters and hand-written manuscripts.