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Copyright Guidelines

Copyright Guidelines for Digital Collections

The copyright status of the items in these collections generally fall under three categories (see below). Whenever possible, Pop Cats Digital Culture Library attempts to identify the copyright status of the item in the descriptive information at either an item or collection level. However, there may be cases where there is no rights information recorded for an item in our collection.

In all cases, the user has the final obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions when using items found in the Pop Cats Digital Culture Library digital collections.

Public Domain

If an item is in the public domain, you may use this work as you wish without requesting permission for its use. The Pop Cats Culture Digital Library asks that you provide attribution to the Library as possible.

Under Copyright

If a work is under copyright, it is the user's obligation to determine whether their projected use of an item falls under fair use or other provisions of copyright law or whether the user needs to seek further permission for a specific use. We encourage users to become familiar with what might be possible under the fair use provisions of copyright law.

Copyright Status Unknown/Undetermined

For some items it is not possible to determine the copyright status because we do not have clear provenance information or creation dates. 

In other cases, we may suspect that the item is in the public domain, but cannot make a full determination. It is the user’s obligation to determine how to proceed in regards to use of an item (i.e. to proceed as if the item is under copyright or not).

If you are a copyright owner or hold more information about items in the digital collection that might clarify rights issues, please contact the Pop Cats Culture Digital Library at popcatsdigital@gmail.com. Upon request, we will remove items from public view if there is a rights issue to be resolved.