Terms of Use

The Marian Anderson Papers are available to the faculty and students of the University, to the music community, and to the public, for educational and research purposes. Scholarly access to the materials is available online and during normal Library operating hours, according to the Library’s established access policies.

This license includes without limitation:

•  the rights to use, copy, distribute, and to permit others to exercise any of such rights.

However, in 2010 added the following Memorandum of Understanding to the Marian Anderson Deed of Gift:

• the rights to copy, distribute, publicly display, and publicly perform works contained in the collection (home recordings) for which Ms. Anderson and/or Mr. DePreist held copyright, individually or collectively, for any purpose and in any media now known or hereafter created. In this section, Mr. DePreist retains the non-exclusive and worldwide rights to the name, image, voice, facsimile signature and likeness of Marian Anderson and associated trademarks and copyrights (“Property”). However these rights shall not interfere with scholarly access to the collection and “any commercial use” shall be attributed to the University as appropriate.

Notwithstanding Penn’s rights to the Anderson Papers, materials included within the Marian Anderson Papers may indeed be subject to the terms of current US Copyright Law. In light of this legal matter, we have excluded from this project materials which are clearly registered under US Copyright Law—for example, sheet music (either in manuscript or published form) and commercial recordings. We estimate that forty percent of the materials in the entire Anderson Collection are subject to US Copyright Law, and are thus excluded from nomination for digitization.

As noted above, in the 2010 signed Memorandum of Understanding between the Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania and James DePreIst, although retaining nonexclusive rights to the image and brand of Ms. Anderson, acknowledged that: these rights shall not interfere with scholarly access to the collection and “any commercial use” shall be attributed to the University as appropriate.

We believe that the materials we have selected for digitization do not conflict with Mr. DePreIst’s commercial interests. On the other hand, in the case of genres like the programs or the scrapbooks, every effort has been made to insure that we are not infringing upon the rights of copyright holders. In the case of the programs, they are exempt from copyright law as noted and we believe that the scrapbooks are not subject to copyright law. Our goal is to provide scholars with access openly and freely to better understand the life and career of Marian Anderson. Without reservation, all digitized materials will be available freely to users through a Creative Commons Zero License.