OCEAN announces with mixed emotions that Melissa is stepping down from its board. As vice-president and board member, her contributions to OCEAN and to copyright education for libraries, archives, and museums have been invaluable. Melissa will now serve as OCEAN's Senior Advisor, Policy and Programs, focusing on international copyright education opportunities. We are grateful for her continued leadership!

After several years of service, Anne has stepped down from the OCEAN Board. With her work conceiving and implementing the Library Copyright Institute and her work on the OCEAN board, Anne has contributed greatly to copyright education for librarians and educators. OCEAN thanks her for her contributions.

Authors Alliance is pleased to announce the availability of research grants of up to $20,000 to support research projects at the intersection of artificial intelligence, copyright law, and the public interest. These grants are part of our broader initiative aimed at generating research that illuminates how emerging AI technologies and legal frameworks can be shaped to serve knowledge, creativity, and the common good.

You can…

Due to technical difficulties, we have had to cancel today's event. We apologize to OCEAN participants!

Dear colleagues, 

You are invited to participate in a research study about librarians’ practices and needs related to providing copyright support and educational opportunities, with a focus on copyright and the use and production of creative works. All employees of libraries at higher education institutions in the United States who are either currently engaged or interested in providing copyright support and education are invited to…

OCEAN is excited to share information about an upcoming webinar about a new book co-authored by board member Sandra Enimil and published by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) called e-Resource Licensing Explained: An A–Z Licensing Guidebook for Libraries. It is a practical tool to empower librarians, archivists and others who license electronic resources (e-resources) for research purposes. On Monday, Jan. 27, 2025, ARL is hosting the webinar with the…

The recording for OCEAN's Community Call, held on Jan. 10, 2025 is now available! During this session, OCEAN Board members shared updates on OCEAN's developments and future learning  opportunities and led participatns in a discussion about how we  can better serve community educational needs about the intersection  between preservation, access, rights and interests in collections. You can view the recording by clicking here. The presentation slides…

Interested in learning more about Local Contexts and how their protocols on digital surrogates of indigenous collections could help your institution? Read how Newfields became the first art museum in North America to implement Local Contexts’ Notices in a new blog post by Rights Specialist Emma L. Carter and OCEAN Advisory Board Member Anne M. Young.

This month the University of Michigan School of Information interviewed OCEAN Advisory Board member Melissa Levine about her work with OCEAN and as director of the university library's copyright office. Visit the UMSI Industry Insights blog to read more!

On November 13th, OCEAN Advisory Board Member Kyle K. Courtney presented and released his paper, No One "Owns" That: Data, Copyright, and the Problems with [Library] Vendor Agreements together with co-authors at the 2024 Charleston Conference, an informal annual gathering of librarians, publishers, electronic resource managers, consultants, and vendors to discuss issues of importance to the library and scholarly publishing landscape. Based on their analysis, the…

Rina Elster Pantalony, Board Chair and President of OCEAN, participated in the launch of the WIPO Toolkit on Preservation on September 2-3, 2024 in Bogota, Colombia, together with co-authors Kenneth D. Crews and David Sutton. The launch, organized by the World Intellectual Property Organization – WIPO, in collaboration with the Subgerencia Cultural del Banco de la República de Colombia and the Dirección Nacional de Derecho de Autor,…

In September 2024, Melissa Levine, Vice-President of OCEAN, was asked by Librarian of Congress, Carla Hayden to serve a second term as a member of the Copyright Public Modernization Committee, designed to to provide a public forum for sharing information regarding the technology-related aspects of the US Copyright Office’s modernization initiative. 

On May 21, 2024, OCEAN Board Member Margaret McKee was named the recipient of the 2024 Texas Digital Library Outreach Award  Margaret received the award on the basis of her significant contributions to OCEAN’s broad outreach efforts to museums, archives and other cultural heritage organizations.

Last October, OCEAN cohosted a webinar with CSAAM (Collections Stewardship ProfessionalNetwork of the American Alliance of Museums). We are pleased to share a recording of the session (close captioned):

Managing Copyright Issues From Acquisition to Exhibition (Recording, October 28, 2022)

AAM recording of Managing Copyright Issues (version for American Alliance of Museums members)

Many thanks to Miami University of Ohio Libraries for making the recording…

The 2022 Miami University Libraries Copyright Conference will be held online the week of September 12. It features a series of five 90-minute webinars (one each day) exploring this year’s theme of Copyright Collaborations! Celebrating our victories: past, present, and future. You can learn more about the event by visiting this webpage. Registration for the conference costs $25 and includes access to the live online…

Coming up on October 28: Rights and Reproductions webinar organized by CSAAM (Collections Stewardship committee, American Alliance of Museums) and OCEAN (the Open Copyright Education Advisory Network). The format will be a presentation about a rights related topic by expert(s) in the field with a lot of time left for questions and discussion afterwards. Everyone is welcome to participate; we are looking to create a…

Public Knowledge has recognized OCEAN advisory board member Kyle Courtney with the IP3 award for intellectual property! The IP3 Award expresses appreciation for work in the three "I's:" intellectual property, information policy and internet protocol issues. Kyle's energy, dedication, intellect, and unique approaches to learning about copyright empowers people working in libraries, archives, and cultural institutions nationwide. Kyle's expertise and creative energy is an indispensable…

EDUCAUSE Webinar

Join Rina and Melissa at EDUCAUSE to learn about OCEAN - where we came from, where we hope to go, and how you can participate. Our vision is to inform and empower our community, recognizing that copyright and related issues are foundational to our networked, digital world, emphasizing equitable access to reliable, relevant, understandable information. There is a convergence of copyright issues across…

We got great feedback from people who attended our CNI Project Briefing in December 2021. The biggest takeaway: the need to understand how to effectively communicate with offices of general counsel so that your attorneys can better help you. To that end, we've established a new working group. This is a small group of attorneys who serve as counsel for libraries, archives and museums. If…

CNI Project Briefing

Melissa Levine, Director, Copyright Office, University of Michigan

Rina Elster Pantalony, Director, Copyright Advisory Services, Columbia University

In this session we discuss our successful pilot collaboration with LYRASIS. with hundreds of registrants for new, online copyright education classes including a basic copyright course made free of charge and distributed publicly. We aspire to inform and empower our community, recognizing that copyright and…