The Visual Resources Association Foundation (VRAF) encourages you to save the date for Can We Do That?: Intellectual Property Rights and Visual Media, which will be held in on Friday, December 15, 2017 at Princeton University. This day-long workshop will be hosted by the Department of Art History and Archaeology, Visual Resources Collection, and is open to cultural heritage professionals, the information and educational communities, and to anyone interested in visual culture. Can We Do That? is one of four workshops being offered during the 2017-2018 VRAF Regional Workshop Program.  The VRAF is grateful to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for their continued support of this exciting opportunity to partner with cultural heritage and educational institutions.

 A thorough understanding of intellectual property rights can be a challenge for lawyers, let alone for information, academic, and cultural heritage professionals, and the application of copyright restrictions on visual media can induce a sense of alarm and uncertainty dependent upon specific circumstances.  Can We Do That? will provide a clear focus on U.S. copyright law, intellectual property rights, and fair use as they pertain to the use of visual media (e.g., images and moving images) within the academic, archival, library, gallery, and museum environments.  Educational usage, securing publication rights, creative reuse, rights statements, licensing, and the public domain will be explored within the context of case studies, including those provided by participants in advance of the workshop.  Participants will also be introduced to tools and resources to help them and their constituents in making appropriate decisions regarding appropriate use and dissemination of visual media.

Can We Do That? will be taught by Anne M. Young, Manager of Rights and Reproductions at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields. In her role, she is responsible for processing all requests for the use of visual content, obtaining permissions for internal uses of images/videos, and administering the institution's onsite photography policy. She also initiates and manages all licensing agreements with artists and/or rights holders for works in the museum’s collection. Young was formerly the photographic archivist for the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University and has worked for the Art Gallery of Ontario and George Eastman Museum. She is currently a Master of Jurisprudence candidate at Indiana University’s Robert H. McKinney School of Law focusing on Intellectual Property, art, and museum law. Young previously received an Master of Arts in photographic preservation and collections management from Ryerson University and a Bachelor of Arts in art history and studio art (photography) from Indiana University. Young chaired the Rights and Reproductions Professional Practices committee of the American Alliance of Museums from 2012–2018 and was the editor of the 2015 publication Rights & Reproductions: The Handbook for Cultural Institutions, for which she received the Visual Resources Association’s Nancy DeLaurier Award in 2017.

The fee for this workshop is $125, and registration will go live in mid-October, 2017. In the meantime, for more information about the workshop, feel free to contact Betha Whitlow, VRAF Director, [log in to unmask]. For questions about the Princeton University venue, please contact Trudy Jacoby, Director of the Visual Resources Collection, [log in to unmask].