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                                                             ISSN 1069-7799
                                  ALAWON
                      ALA Washington Office Newsline
                     An electronic publication of the
              American Library Association Washington Office

                            Volume 3, Number 51
                            September 16, 1994

   In this issue: (98 lines)
     ALA TESTIFIES ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY REPORT

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               ALA TESTIFIES ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY REPORT

Edward J. Valauskas, chair of the ALA Committee on Legislation's Ad Hoc
Subcommittee on Copyright, was the first witness at the September 14
hearing in Chicago on the Administration's recent report on intellectual
property.  The ALA testimony included three basic recommendations as set
out in ALA's September 2 letter to the Working Group on Intellectual
Property Rights of the White House Information Infrastructure Task Force,
which issued _Intellectual Property and the National Information
Infrastructure_, in July as a preliminary draft report for comment. 

ALA's three key points were:

     1.  A BALANCED POLICY FRAMEWORK IS ESSENTIAL FOR THE NII.  This policy
framework must balance protection of the interests of intellectual property
rights holders with the presumption in favor of free dissemination of ideas
embedded in the First Amendment and the intellectual property clause of the
Constitution.

     2.  EXPANDED LIMITATIONS MUST ACCOMPANY EXPANDED RIGHTS.  No expansion
of copyright holders' rights to include electronic transmission should be
enacted without enactment of corresponding limitations on those rights in
areas such as fair use, classroom use, and library use.  Marginalizing
these interests to a conference for the development of nonstatutory
guidelines will not maintain balance.  Library provisions of the copyright
law should be strengthened to allow preservation activities that use
electronic or other appropriate technologies.

     3.  A NEW CONTU IS NEEDED.  ALA urged the Working Group to recommend
to Congress enactment of a new National Commission on New Technological
Uses (CONTU) of copyrighted works.  The complexity of the copyright
problems raised by the NII technology surpasses those of the photocopying
and early computer technologies that led to the creation by Congress of
CONTU in 1974.  A new CONTU is needed to conduct studies, compile data, and
better justify needed changes in copyright law both to assure public access
to material disseminated via the NII and to respect the rights of owners of
copyrighted works.

ALA's testimony was endorsed by the American Association of Law Libraries,
the Association of Academic Health Science Library Directors, the
Association of Research Libraries, the Medical Library Association, the
National Humanities Alliance, and the Special Libraries Association.

Also testifying was John W. Berry, Director of Advancement and Special
Programs at the University of Illinois At Chicago Library.  His testimony
was based on the "Statement of Intellectual Property Principles" adopted by
the Association of Research Libraries in May.  ALA endorsed these
principles in June.

The September 14 hearing was chaired by Bruce Lehman, Assistant Secretary
of Commerce and Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, and chair of the
Working Group.   Gloria Werner, University Librarian, University of
California-Los Angeles, was scheduled to testify on September 16 at the Los
Angeles hearing on the report, on behalf of ARL and the same group of
library and scholarly organizations.  Hearings are also scheduled for
Washington, DC on September 22-23.

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