Permission in the form of a license for works held by the Library will only be given if the work is held in copyright by the UC Regents, and you have determined that your use exceeds fair use. You do not need permission if your use is a fair use. More information about copyright, making fair use decisions, and how to find copyright holders can be found on the "Copyright, Fair Use, and Your Project" page of this guide.
Information can be found below for the following permission types:
A fee is charged for licenses of all commercial projects. A full explanation of our licensing fees can be found on the "Fee Schedule" page of this guide. The completed, countersigned license will be sent to the email address registered in Aeon within 4 weeks of payment being received.
Please see our Frequently Asked Questions tab if you have a question about permissions that is not answered below.
In keeping with Library policy, researchers seeking to quote from or otherwise reproduce in facsimile any Library collections materials in researchers’ own publications or other public displays do not need copyright permission to make uses that constitute “fair use” under copyright law. (Fair use is described further on the "Copyright, Fair Use, and Your Project" page of this guide.)
Please use the following information to determine whether you must obtain copyright permission from the rightsholder (which may be the Library) to publish content from within the Library’s collections, and whether a fee may be assessed.
Copyright status of work and the associated permission requirements
Note that this information applies to copyright permissions only, and does not include due diligence that researchers must conduct regarding other legal restrictions that may apply to the materials’ use and distribution (e.g. privacy and publicity rights; contract, donor and other restrictions). It is the researcher’s responsibility to assess permissible uses under all laws and conditions.
As indicated above, for instances in which your intended publishing would exceed fair use and it is the UC Regents who hold copyright to the underlying work, you must request the Library’s copyright permission to publish by submitting a permissions order in Aeon. Information about fees charged can be found on The Bancroft Library's fee schedule.
The Library cannot grant or deny requests to publish materials for which a third party holds copyright. Researchers must contact the copyright holder or copyright holder’s estate—rather than the Library—to request permission if the intended use will exceed fair use.
The Library charges a fee for reproducing full-text/entire edition of a work based on nature of your intended use (commercial vs. non-commercial). Permission can only be granted for material to which the University of California Regents own the copyright. If the Library’s copyright permission is sought, submit your request through Aeon.
A Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY 4.0) was applied to all of Thérèse Bonney photographs in July of 2022, and individual permission is no longer required. Please see the Easy to Use Collections tab for more information.
Historically, all interviews were transcribed from their original recordings (usually on reel to reel tapes, cassettes, or VHS) and narrators were given the right to review, edit, and seal the interview if they wished. When these edits were made in the creation of the final transcript, that transcript then became the document of record. In service to the Library’s mission, the Oral History Center (OHC) makes full transcripts of most of their interviews available as a PDF through their website.
All researchers are welcome to access sound or audiovisual recordings of interviews conducted by the OHC, and held by The Bancroft Library for their own personal use. Any further use of the unedited recording that is not mirrored in the published transcript is prohibited.
You may wish to listen to and possibly use the audio recording, rather than the transcription. In order to allow access to this material while preserving the intent behind having the transcript (rather than the audio) be the document of record, we ask that you review the steps below.
Access
The majority of the recordings of OHC interviews have not yet been digitized and exist only on magnetic media, like cassettes or VHS tapes. For preservation purposes the Library does not allow access to magnetic media, so any interview which exists solely on this type of carrier will first need to be digitized. The recordings can be made available to you in the reading room or you can request a digital file to review remotely. We use an off-site vendor for our sound recording digitization, and the process of having these recordings digitized will take a minimum of two months, no matter which option you choose below.
Ahead of making a request via the steps below, please check the catalog record for the interview you wish to access to ensure that there are no restrictions on the recording(s).
Permission
Researchers are welcome to use portions of the recording that also appear in the final transcript, either by relying on fair use or by obtaining permission from the copyright owner. The UC Regents are the copyright owner in the majority of OHC produced interviews, and permission can be requested via Aeon. Before using and/or sharing any part of the recording, it is the researcher's responsibility to ensure that the portion of the recording that you wish to use is part of the final transcript.
If you have any further questions about accessing the recordings of interviews produced by the OHC please contact The Bancroft Library at bancref-library@berkeley.edu, and any questions regarding permission to use these recordings can be directed to the Office of Scholarly Communication & Information Policy at schol-comm@berkeley.edu.
