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The National Digital Library Program and the Library of Congress respect copyright and other legal rights associated with materials under consideration for dissemination over the Internet. The program makes items from Library of Congress collections available online after a full risk assessment has determined the legal status of items and identified rights owners or other parties to the extent possible. Permission or authorization [as in "no objection"] is sought from known rights owners or other parties for rights such as copyright, publicity, and privacy.

Many collections at the Library raise no apparent rights concerns when considered for digitization. For example, copyright is not a concern in the case of works by employees of the federal government or for works for which available copyright protection has expired, although the content of such works may still raise publicity or privacy concerns. Items in other collections have unclear or indeterminate provenance, like similar materials in museum or archives everywhere. The Library's legal assessment process relies heavily on the substantive knowledge of collections experts in special-collections divisions like Prints and Photographs and the American Folklife Center. Information provided by these experts augments available copyright or catalog records and acquisition documents that may note donor restrictions or other limits on access or use. The legal review depends upon variables such as the state of collections, the extent of available information, and the nature of the medium, e.g., dramatic works, sound recordings, or film. This approach to assessing rights inherent in collections selected for digitization by the Library has resulted from extensive discussion with the Library's General Counsel and senior members of the U.S. Copyright Office's staff. The Library has sought an approach to responsible use of its collections in a manner consistent with its duties and mission. This process is flexible, responding to the idiosyncratic nature of the collections and available information.

Materials currently available through American Memory range from items for which the Library is unaware of any copyright or other legal concerns to items where permission or authorization was sought from copyright or other rights holders before the materials were presented on the Library's World Wide Web site. Prospective applicants for Phase II of the Digital Libraries Initiative who would like to make use of the digital collections made available by the Library are encouraged to read carefully the general statement on copyright and other rights provided on the American Memory home page and to consult the specific restriction statements provided for each collection. Although the Library will assist grant recipients in identifying owners and other parties, the Library cannot provide legal advice regarding the content.

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