Mandatory Training: Copyright Basics and Best Practices

Submitted by Leslie Marinelli

As library workers, we proudly hold ourselves to a high standard when sharing accurate information, citing our sources, and adhering to copyright laws. 

FCPL was recently notified that one of the event images on our website was being used without permission. To prevent further copyright infringements, we are implementing new training requirements and procedures over the next few weeks and months. 

This will be a three-pronged approach:

1. Copyright training,

2. Addressing existing images on our website,

3. Establishing new procedures to vet images and document image sources. 

We are asking all staff to please watch the Outdoor Industry Association Webinar, Use of Online Images: Copyright Basics and Best Practices, before May 31. This mandatory one-hour webinar is presented by Rachel Nicholas, a Copyright Lawyer at Lewis Roca, and provides a general overview of copyright. Please make sure to log this training in the CMT when you have completed it. 

Training Specialist Olivia Kolosna will be offering additional training modules on selecting copyright-safe images and correctly attributing them in our daily operations. Be on the lookout for these learning opportunities in the coming weeks. 

To limit our liability for event images currently in use on our website, the week of May 6 we will delete all old events from Communico that took place prior to November 2022 and remove the images from events that occurred November 2022 to the present. Event details will be copied to the CMT before they are deleted from Communico. 

Moving forward, we are creating procedures for removing images from events after they are over.   

This is just an overview of this project. More detailed information will be provided as this project progresses. Your first action item is to watch the webinar mentioned above and log it in the CMT. 

Please see your supervisor if you have any questions or concerns about this project.