Copyright and Permissions
Yale Library collects, organizes, preserves, and provides access to a rich and unique record of human thought and creativity. Researchers and other library users are solely responsible for making legal assessments regarding the use of an item and securing any necessary permissions.
General Terms Governing Use of Materials
Yale Library collects, organizes, preserves, and provides access to and services for a rich and unique record of human thought and creativity. The library offers public access to a range of collections through online exhibitions, archival finding aids, digital repositories, and the online public access catalog. For information on appropriate uses of our licensed electronic resources, please see E-Resources Access and Use policy.
Yale Library provides access to these materials for educational and research purposes only. The library endeavors when possible to provide accurate factual information about copyright owners and related matters in catalog records, finding aids, and other texts that accompany collections or individual items that may assist you in making necessary legal determinations. Please contact copyright.librarian@yale.edu if you have helpful rights-related information about any material included in these collections or if you believe the website has not properly attributed your work or has used your material without necessary authorization.
Determining Copyright and Fair Use
Yale Library makes material available for research and scholarship, and your ability to reuse materials depends on the item and your intended use of it. Orbis, Quicksearch, Archives at Yale, Digital Collections, and our other systems often include basic access and usage rights information. You are solely responsible for making legal assessments regarding the use of an item and securing any necessary permissions.
Materials in Yale Library collections often fall into one of three categories:
- Materials in the public domain
- Materials not in the public domain, for which Yale does not hold copyright
- Materials not in the public domain, for which Yale holds copyright
Yale Library staff are able to assist in providing permissions only for materials in this third category (materials not in the public domain, for which Yale holds copyright). For information and guidance, please contact relevant repository staff.
Additional Copyright Resources
For general information about copyright, please refer to the following:
- Yale Library’s Copyright Guidance Libguide
- Yale Office of General Counsel Fair Use Tools
- The United States Copyright Office and the complete Copyright Law of the United States
- Peter B. Hirtle’s Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States
- Cornell University Library Copyright Services: Copyright Support guide
- UPenn’s Copyright Registration and Renewal Records, by year
- Stanford’s Measuring Fair Use: The Four Factors