Copyright and Other Restrictions

Missouri State is not aware of any U.S. copyright protection or any other restrictions in the material in this Collection, except as noted below. Users should keep in mind that the University is providing access to these materials strictly for educational and research purposes. The written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions.

The audio materials in this Collection were recorded by Mr. Max F. Hunter and were subsequently given to the Springfield-Greene County Public Library. We gratefully acknowledge the Library’s permission to place these materials online.

We ask that researchers approach the materials in this collection with respect for the culture and sensibilities of the people whose lives, ideas, and creativity are documented here. Researchers are also reminded that privacy and publicity rights may pertain to certain uses of this material.

As is often the case with materials collected in the course of ethnographic field research, it is difficult or impossible to sufficiently identify specific tunes performed by participants, which precludes performing a comprehensive assessment of the copyright status of underlying musical rights in compositions. We believe that most, if not all, of the works in this collection are in the public domain. Users are reminded that they must make their own assessment of copyrights or other rights (or absence of such rights) in the context of their intended use.

The nature of historical archival collections means that copyright or other information about restrictions may be difficult or even impossible to determine. Whenever possible, this site provides information about copyright owners and other restrictions on the individual song pages. We provide this information as a service to aid users in determining the appropriate use of an item, but that determination ultimately rests with the user.

It is the user's obligation to determine and satisfy copyright or other use restrictions when publishing or otherwise distributing materials found in this collection. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

We are eager to hear from any copyright owners who are not properly identified so that appropriate information may be provided in the future.