councilor.org
| Source | D. Ohmans |
| Date | 99/05/01/21:51 |
| /* Written 2:32 PM Jun 17, 1998 by jshell@netcom.com in igc:labr.all */ /* ---------- "Fair Use In Cyberspace" ---------- */ ---------- Forwarded message ---------- FYI, House bills of interest to librarians under consideration. The House Telecommunications Subcommittee is expected to meet on or about June 17 to consider changes to H.R. 2281 to protect "fair use," will fully apply in cyberspace and H.R. 3048, The Digital Era Copyright Enhancement Act-- the library-friendly "Boucher/Campbell" bill previously endorsed by ALA. On Friday, June 5 the House Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Telecommunications -- chaired by Rep. Billy Tauzin -- met to consider H.R. 2281, particularly its impact on fair use and the many educational and commercial activities now legal that would be criminalized by the bill. Testifying on behalf of the AALL, ALA, ARL, MLA and SLA, Prof.Robert Oakley, library director of the Georgetown University Law Center, emphasized that: "H.R. 2281, as drafted, would grant copyright owners a new and unrestricted exclusive right to control access to information in digital works which could negate one of the most basic principles that has made the U.S. so clearly a leader in intellectual creativity, innovation, and commerce -- the ability to gain access to information in published or publicly available works. . . . By access I mean the right to read and, even more simply, the right to browse published works. Taken another step, it means the right to use works in ways currently allowed by exemptions and limitations in copyright -- expressly crafted by Congress -- to permit fair use, use for library preservation, and use in classroom teaching." This central theme also was underscored by several other witnesses. Prof. Oakley and others strongly urged the Subcommittee to make the changes in H.R. 2281 necessary to conform its actual language to the intent of its drafters. Specifically, they supported proposed amendments by H.R. 3048 co-author Rep. Rick Boucher to make the "circumvention" of a digital wrapper to gain "access" to copyrighted material an offense only when such access results in "copyright infringemen,t" not when undertaken to make fair use (or other legal use) of that material. |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho