If staff record themselves through our phone system reading published short stories and poems that are then made accessible to the public through the same phone system, are there issues with copyright? Various public libraries nationwide offer dial a story services, and my school district public library is looking to offer this too. Some of our patrons do not have access to technology and internet, so we want to offer this no frills service during our COVID-19 closure, and beyond. The recordings would likely be 3 to 7 minutes in length and offered a couple of times a week.
For this answer, we are again joined by Jessica Keltz, associate attorney at the Law Office of Stephanie Adams, PLLC.
As we noted in our March 24 Ask The Lawyer answer (Audiobooks and Copyright Laws in a Pandemic), copyright law does still apply despite the pandemic and the many needs it has created for alternative outlets, resources and programming.
For a public library, unless the service is an adaptation under the Americans with Disabilities Act, any recording of a copyrighted work needs to be made with the permission of the rights holder. Under fair use doctrine, limited excerpts can be read, interspersed with commentary. But a full work presented alone in its entirety or in substantial excerpts, without the permission of the rights holder, may not be. This doctrine remains in effect.
One solution to consider is reading either works that are in the public domain, and/or works whose rights holders have given permission for this type of use during the pandemic or otherwise. Readers may have heard about LeVar Burton Reads, a pandemic podcast from the iconic Reading Rainbow host, in which Burton encountered this exact struggle and was given permission by noted authors including Neil Gaiman and Jason Reynolds. While most local libraries will not have Burton’s star-studded cast of Twitter followers from which to draw partnerships, they may find folks in their own communities who are happy to freely share their own works.
A list of ideas for children’s books in the public domain is here: https://concretecomputing.com/thoughts/list-of-public-domain-free-books-for-kids-by-grade-level/
Project Gutenberg is also often recommended for searching for works in the public domain: http://www.gutenberg.org/