Copyright: What You Need to Know

General information about when permission is needed to use various works and how permission may be obtained.

Provides procedures for contacting copyright owners and requesting permission to use copyrighted works. Includes model permission forms for several purposes, including digitizing a newspaper or periodical.

Artists Rights Society (ARS) is the preeminent copyright, licensing, and monitoring organization for visual artists in the United States. Founded in 1987, ARS represents the intellectual property rights interests of over 80,000 visual artists and their estates from around the world.

Offers general, but practical, information on what to look for in conducting a copyright investigation. Published as Circular 22 in the CCO's series of free publications. Includes the Copyright Office's search request form.

Engineers at Google Book Search gathered records of copyright renewals from the Copyright Office and those derived from the Universal Library Project into a free XML file (56.5 MB), in the public domain, available through a link in this posting.