COPYRIGHT BILLS PASS CONGRESS
Sloan, Bernie
bernies at uillinois.edu
Wed Oct 14 10:03:26 EDT 1998
FYI......of interest to U.S. subscribers to Web4Lib
Bernie Sloan
Senior Library Information Systems Consultant
University of Illinois Office for Planning & Budgeting
338 Henry Administration Building
506 S. Wright Street
Urbana, IL 61801
Phone: (217) 333-4895
Fax: (217) 333-6355
Email: bernies at uillinois.edu
> _________________________________________________________________
> ALAWON Volume 7, Number 125
> ISSN 1069-7799 October 13, 1998
>
> American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
>
> In this issue: (217 lines)
>
> [1] WIPO COPYRIGHT TREATY AND TERM EXTENSION BILLS CLEAR
> CONGRESS; DANGEROUS DATABASE BILL DERAILED BUT BOUND TO
> RETURN IN 1999
> [2] DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT GUIDE
> [3] COPYRIGHT TERM EXTENSION ACT GUIDE
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> [1] WIPO COPYRIGHT TREATY AND TERM EXTENSION BILLS CLEAR
> CONGRESS; DANGEROUS DATABASE BILL DERAILED BUT BOUND TO
> RETURN IN 1999
>
> By separate voice votes taken on October 12 and 7 respectively,
> both chambers of Congress have approved the conference report
> (105-796) on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (H.R. 2281) and
> on identical versions of the Copyright Term Extension Act (S.
> 505). President Clinton has indicated that he will sign the
> bills.
>
> Those actions bring to a close more than three years of intensive
> work by ALA, library supporters and other groups to shape the
> national and international debate over how best to update the
> nation's copyright laws for the digital age. Significantly, the
> H.R. 2281 conference committee deliberately elected not to
> include in its report the Collections of Information Antipiracy
> Act (S. 2291/H.R. 2652), a proposal to provide sweeping new legal
> protection for collections of information, including those not
> presently protected by copyright.
>
> While the legislative debate about how to implement the new WIPO
> copyright treaties and whether to add 20 years to the term of
> copyright protection may be over, both bills as finally adopted
> present ongoing opportunities and pitfalls for libraries,
> archives and educational institutions. Moreover, fierce
> legislative debate over database protection is expected to resume
> in earnest shortly after the new 106th Congress convenes in late
> January 1999.
>
> Here is a brief guide to what Congress has done in the Digital
> Millennium Copyright Act and the Copyright Term Extension Act ...
> and left libraries to do in the future:
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> [2] DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT GUIDE
>
> PURPOSE: Update the current Copyright Act for the digital
> environment and conform U.S. law to the requirements of new World
> Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties negotiated in
> Geneva in December 1996.
>
> FUTURE LIBRARY ROLE: As detailed below, assuring that all kinds
> of copyrighted works remain available for fair use (and other
> lawful uses). The adoption of the Digital Millennium Copyright
> Act could depend in large part upon the success of librarians and
> library supporters in collecting and organizing evidence of the
> law's adverse or potentially adverse effects. In addition,
> librarians will have the opportunity to assist the Register of
> Copyrights in making recommendations to Congress early in 1999 as
> to whether (and, if so, how) the Copyright Act should be updated
> to better facilitate distance education.
>
> KEY PROVISIONS: ALA, together with other major national library
> associations and its partners in the Digital Future Coalition,
> has struggled to maintain the traditional balance in copyright
> law between protecting information and affording access to it by:
> 1) helping Congress to craft entirely new law with this balance
> in mind; and 2) updating information users' existing rights and
> privileges to take changed technologies and practices into
> account. These efforts necessarily implicated many parts of the
> Digital Millennium Copyright Act identified with separate
> headings below:
>
> TITLE I: NEW PROHIBITIONS ON CIRCUMVENTION OF PROTECTION
> TECHNOLOGIES
>
> * Prohibits the "circumvention" of any effective
> "technological protection measure" (e.g., a password or
> form of encryption) used by a copyright holder to
> restrict access to its material;
> * Prohibits the manufacture of any device, or the
> offering of any service, primarily designed to defeat
> an effective "technological protection measure;"
> * Defers the effective date of these prohibitions for two
> years and 18 months, respectively;
> * During those two years, and then every three years
> thereafter, requires the Librarian of Congress (through
> the office of the Register of Copyrights), to conduct a
> formal "on the record" rulemaking proceeding to
> determine whether the "anti-circumvention" prohibition
> will "adversely affect" information users' (both
> individuals and institutions) "ability to make
> noninfringing uses" of "a particular class of
> copyrighted works" (NOTE: the term "class" was
> deliberately left undefined, but is intended to be
> fairly narrow, e.g., history texts, digital maps, or
> personal finance software);
> * Requires that the Librarian issue a three-year waiver
> from the anti-circumvention prohibition with respect to
> any class of work to which the new law has adversely
> affected (or is likely to affect) access for fair use
> and other noninfringing uses;
> * Exempts nonprofit libraries, archives and educational
> institutions from criminal penalties and allows for
> nullification of any civil fine when such an
> institution can demonstrate that it had no reason to be
> aware that its actions violated the new law;
> * Expressly states that many valuable activities based on
> the Fair Use Doctrine (including reverse engineering,
> security testing, privacy protection and encryption
> research) will not constitute illegal
> "anticircumvention;"
> * Makes no change to the Fair Use Doctrine, or to other
> information user privileges and rights;
>
> TITLE II: LIMITATIONS ON ONLINE SERVICE PROVIDER LIABILITY
> * Exempts any "online service provider" or carrier of
> digital information (including libraries) from
> copyright liability based solely on the content of a
> transmission made by a user of the provider's or
> carrier's system (e.g., the user of a library computer
> system);
> * Establishes a mechanism for avoiding copyright
> infringement liability based upon the storage of
> infringing information on an online service provider's
> own computer system, or upon the use of "information
> location tools" and hyperlinks, if the provider acts
> "expeditiously to remove or disable access to"
> infringing material identified in a formal notice by
> the copyright holder.
>
> TITLE IV: INCLUDES DIGITAL PRESERVATION AND DISTANCE EDUCATION
>
> DIGITAL PRESERVATION
>
> * Updates the current preservation provision of the
> Copyright Act (Sec. 108) to:
> -- expressly permit authorized institutions to make up
> to three, digital preservation copies of an eligible
> copyrighted work;
> -- electronically "loan" those copies to other
> qualifying institutions;
> -- permit preservation, including by digital means,
> when the existing format in which the work has been
> stored becomes obsolete.
>
> DISTANCE EDUCATION
>
> * Charges the Register of Copyrights with reporting to
> Congress within six months of the bill's effective date
> on "how to promote distance education through digital
> technologies";
> * Encourages the Register to formulate such
> recommendations as statutory proposals
> * Specifies eight factors to be considered by the
> Register, including: "the extent to which the
> availability of licenses for the use of copyrighted
> works in distance education through interactive digital
> networks should be considered in assessing eligibility
> for any distance education exemption...."
> _________________________________________________________________
>
> [3] COPYRIGHT TERM EXTENSION ACT GUIDE
>
> PURPOSE: To extend by 20 years the length of protection afforded
> to works created by both individuals and corporate copyright
> holders.
>
> FUTURE LIBRARY ROLE: By taking full advantage of the limited but
> important exemption described below, libraries, archives and
> nonprofit educational institutions can minimize the practical
> impact of this unfortunate legislation.
>
> KEY PROVISIONS:
>
> * Extends the term of copyright from "life +50 years" to "life
> +70 years" for individual authors and to 95 years from 75
> years for corporate "creators";
> * Applies both prospectively and to all works still under
> copyright on the bill's effective date;
> * Includes an exception permitting libraries, archives and
> nonprofit educational institutions to treat a copyrighted
> work in its last (new) 20 years of protection as if it were
> in the public domain for noncommercial purposes, provided
> that: 1) a good faith investigation has determined that the
> work is "not subject to normal commercial exploitation," and
> 2) such use of the work stops if the copyright owner
> provides notice to the contrary (even if the work had never
> before been exploited).
> _________________________________________________________________
>
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>
> Contributors: Adam Eisgrau
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> _________________________________________________________________
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