Diane -

I teach an online course on "Copyright and Intellectual Property 101 for Museums". The next course starts on Dec. 11th.
www.copyrightclass15.eventbrite.com

Copyright is for original works of collections of works in writing, photography, film, video, art, music, dance, and software.

The records you describe could be considered copyright if the forms were created by your institution - but the laws that apply would be the existing laws from the time they were created.

Records most likely fall under Trade Secrets or proprietary information of your institution that is a protected type of intellectual property. Additionally, you own the records and control access to them. So, ultimately you fully control access, and use for those records and you can impose any policy or agreement for anyone asking access to them.

This is how it would apply in the USA. Different countries have different laws in regards to copyright and intellectual property.

Cheers!
Dave

David Harvey
Senior Conservator & Museum Consultant
Los Angeles CA  USA
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On Mon, Nov 13, 2017 at 10:56 AM, Diane Hall <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I have a question about archives and copyright/intellectual property. For context my museum is attached to a larger NFP (not a university). 

(this story gets a little long)

I have a "researcher" who is well known at my i situation for being a bit of pain to work with. Very long story short: he wants record showing devices that were sumbitted for approval to use in competitions hosted by the NFP the museum is attached to, There are more than 15 archival boxes of them. These record are from the 1960s and 70. 

The CEO of the NFP does not want this guy to be able to take these records and then, say publish a book and make money off of them. 

On the one hand if this were artwork, literature, music etc. Copyright would apply. But these are basically business form. I'm not sure if the fall under copyright or not. My instinct is they do. Can anyone out there with more experience give me advice, 






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