Copyright affects so much of the creative content we interact with and create... not just a painting we may see in a museum or a novel we are reading, but also the emails we ourselves send, the blogs and articles we write, and the photos we take and post.

Copy That! Copyright Basics for Library Professionals is a three-part series focusing on basic principles of U.S. copyright law and its impact on us as library professionals, and in our own creative lives.

Part 1 will get into what intellectual property is, what copyright law in the U.S. protects (and what it doesn’t), and how long it lasts. We will also briefly touch on how U.S. copyright connects to other countries through treaties. Some key takeaways from the presentation will be:

• An understanding of the types of rights granted to creators under U.S. copyright law
• How the law determines copyright ownership of a particular work
• The duration of copyright protections and how works enter the public domain