Many of you may have heard of the Copyright Office's Section
108 Study Group, a small group tasked with examining the copyright
exemptions available to libraries and archives and seeing if they need to
be modified because of the prevalence of digital information.
As part of the process, the Study Group held public roundtables in
Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles, where Richard Pearce-Moses, President
of SAA, spoke about archival concerns. There is also a call for
written comments. Initially the comments were due on 17 April; I
have just learned that the deadline has been extended to 28
April.
Anyone who reads the background paper available from
http://www.loc.gov/section108/ will see that there are a number of
issues of importance to archives under discussion. For example, one
issue under consideration is whether the exemptions in 108 should
continue to be made available to archives in for-profit businesses, or
whether they should be limited to non-profits. Another question is
whether the definition of libraries and archives should be extended to
include museums or limited to exclude virtual libraries such as the
National Science Digital Library or the Internet Archive. There is
a also proposed provision that would allow archives to make copies of
published digital works for preservation purposes prior to their becoming
damaged or obsolete. One other question asks whether archives
should be allowed to make copies of unpublished works for deposit in
other libraries or for patrons, or if such actions would infringe on the
copyright owner's right of first publication.
I would encourage anyone who cares about the issues to examine the
background paper found at the 108 Study Group above and submit comments
on behalf of yourself or your institution. The comments can be no
more than ten pages in length (and they can be less), and not all issues
in the background paper need be addressed. Concrete examples of why
the proposed changes matter are always the most welcome.
Peter
---------------------------------------------------------------
Peter B.
Hirtle
Chair, SAA IP Working Group
IRIS Technology Strategist and
CUL Intellectual Property Officer
Instruction, Research, and Information Services Division
Cornell University
Library
309 Uris
Library
Ithaca, NY 14853
607/255-4033 (ph)
607/255-7922 (fax)
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