Copyright Questions

Copyright Questions

In order to address possible copyright concerns regarding the digital texts produced in eScriptorium, we have consulted with the legal literature, our advisory board, and experts in copyright law. OpenITI’s position is that because the historical Arabic and Persian texts uploaded to OpenITI date to 1900 or earlier, they are in the public domain. While there may be incidental copies made of surrounding materials when we convert modern editions of the historical texts into machine readable format, these will be excised from the text and deleted prior to public use. Moreover, there are substantial factors weighing in favor of a finding of fair use under U.S. law, including the fact that the use is transformative, non-profit, and educational.

OpenITI asks publishers that dispute the copyright of a specific text in the OpenITI corpus to contact us at openiti@umd.edu and ask for the removal of the work.