****Begin File******************Begin File*******************Begin File**** *************************************************************************** ISSN 1069-7799 ALAWON ALA Washington Office Newsline An electronic publication of the American Library Association Washington Office Volume 3, Number 66 November 12, 1994 In this issue: (301 lines) ALA HELPS TO HOST NTIA VIRTUAL CONFERENCE NOVEMBER 14-18 FAIR USE IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE: SERVING THE PUBLIC INTEREST NTIA VIRTUAL CONFERENCE ON UNIVERSAL SERVICE AND OPEN ACCESS *************************************************************************** ALA HELPS TO HOST NTIA VIRTUAL CONFERENCE NOVEMBER 14-18 ALA Washington Office Executive Director Carol C. Henderson contributed an introductory essay to help lead off the discussion on intellectual property during the November 14-18 Virtual Conference on Universal Service and Open Access to the Telecommunications Network sponsored by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in the Department of Commerce. Information on how to participate follows later in this issue. In addition, ALAWON helped publicize the virtual conference and NTIA's call for public sites, including libraries, to serve as public access points for individuals who wished to participate in the public electronic discussions. A number of libraries responded and are serving as public access sites. *************************************************************************** FAIR USE IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE: SERVING THE PUBLIC INTEREST ALA Washington Office Executive Director Carol C. Henderson, in submitting an introductory essay for the intellectual property discussion on NTIA's virtual conference, incorporated a draft document developed by representatives of several library associations, but intended for a much wider audience. The following is the material submitted to NTIA. Comments on this draft in progress are welcome, either through the NTIA virtual conference (information on how to participate follows in the next article), or directly to the ALA Washington Office. A BALANCING ACT: COPYRIGHT IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE Carol C. Henderson Executive Director, Washington Office American Library Association cch@alawash.org The legal framework for intellectual property is based on a provision in the U.S. Constitution that empowers Congress to grant limited rights to authors and creators in their intellectual works for the purpose of promoting science and the useful arts. The Copyright Act of 1976 was intended to be technologically neutral, and to strike the essential balance grounded in the Constitution between rewarding creators and promoting growth of new knowledge built upon the work of others. One of the roles of the federal government is to foster maximum creativity by maintaining this equilibrium. The library community, which has long provided opportunities for the public to benefit from the lending and use of a wide variety of copyrighted and public domain materials, is especially concerned that this balance among legitimate interests be maintained in the digital environment as well as with respect to traditional formats. To that end, representatives of several library associations drafted the following statement, "Fair Use in the Electronic Age: Serving the Public Interest." The document is still a draft in progress, but the organizations listed at the end of the statement would welcome comments from participants in the intellectual property discussion of NTIA's virtual public conference. D R A F T in progress 11/08/94 FAIR USE IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE: SERVING THE PUBLIC INTEREST The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work....This result is neither unfair nor unfortunate. It is the means by which copyright advances the progress of science and art. -- Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (Feist Publications, Inc. v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499US340, 349 (1991) The genius of United States copyright law is that, in conformance with its constitutional foundation, it balances the intellectual property interests of authors, publishers and copyright owners with society's need for the free exchange of ideas. Taken together, fair use and other public rights to utilize copyrighted works, as confirmed in the Copyright Act of 1976, constitute indispensable legal doctrines for promoting the dissemination of knowledge, while ensuring authors, publishers and copyright owners appropriate protection of their creative works and economic investments. The fair use provision of the Copyright Act allows reproduction and other uses of copyrighted works under certain conditions for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship or research. Additional provisions of the law allow uses specifically permitted by Congress to further educational and library activities. The preservation and continuation of these balanced rights in an electronic environment as well as in traditional formats are essential to the free flow of information and to the development of an information infrastructure that serves the public interest. A long-standing principle is that copyright exists for the public good. The benefits of the new technologies should flow to the public as well as to copyright proprietors. As more information becomes available only in electronic formats, the public's legitimate right to use copyrighted material must be protected. In order for copyright to truly serve its purpose of "promoting progress," the public's right of fair use must continue in the electronic era, and these lawful uses of copyrighted works must be allowed without individual transaction fees. Without infringing copyright, the public has a right to expect: o to read, listen to, or view publicly marketed copyrighted material privately, on site or remotely; o to browse through publicly marketed copyrighted material; o to experiment with variations of copyrighted material for fair use purposes, while preserving the integrity of the original; o to make a first generation copy for personal use of an article or other small part of a publicly marketed copyrighted work or a work in a library's collection for such purpose as study, scholarship, or research; and o to make transitory copies if ephemeral or incidental to a lawful use and if retained only temporarily. Without infringing copyright, nonprofit libraries and other Section 108 libraries, on behalf of their clientele, should be able: o to use electronic technologies to preserve copyrighted materials in their collections; o to provide copyrighted materials as part of electronic reserve room service; o to provide copyrighted materials as part of electronic interlibrary loan service; and o to avoid liability, after posting appropriate copyright notices, for the unsupervised actions of their users. Users, libraries, and educational institutions have a right to expect: o that the terms of licenses will not restrict fair use or lawful library or educational uses; o that U.S. government works and other public domain materials will be readily available without restrictions and at a government price not exceeding the marginal cost of dissemination; and o that rights of use for nonprofit education apply in face-to-face teaching and in transmittal or broadcast to remote locations where educational institutions of the future must increasingly reach their students. ______ This statement was developed by representatives of the following associations: American Association of Law Librarians American Library Association Association of Academic Health Sciences Library Directors Association of Research Libraries Medical Library Association Special Libraries Association *************************************************************************** NTIA VIRTUAL CONFERENCE ON UNIVERSAL SERVICE AND OPEN ACCESS HOW TO PARTICIPATE DURING THE WEEK OF THE CONFERENCE (The following information is provided by NTIA.) The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Universal Service Working Group of the Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF) will host an electronic, Virtual Conference during the week of November 14-18, 1994. Participation requires access to a computer with a modem or with Internet access (if you do not have access to a computer, please see the below section concerning Public Access Points). Topics to be discussed are: --Redefining Universal Service and Open Access (Listserv Topic Name: redefus) --Affordability and Availability (Listserv Topic Name: avail) --Intellectual Property (Listserv Topic Name: intellec) --Privacy (Listserv Topic Name: privacy) --Interoperability Standards (Listserv Topic Name: standard) --Universal Service/Open Access for Individuals with Disabilities (Listserv Topic Name: opnacces) Internet Access: You can access the conference in a variety of ways. You may both read and post messages via email, netnews, and www, and read messages only via gopher and wais. GOPHER: Point your Gopher browser to gopher-virtconf.ntia.doc.gov to reach the top-level gopher menu for the conference. WWW/MOSAIC: Point your WWW browser to http://www-virtconf.ntia.doc.gov to reach the WWW HomePage for the conference. There will be information there on how to post messages to the conference for those without email accounts. Posting messages will require a forms-compatible WWW browser. EMAIL: In order to subscribe to one or more of the above Listserv Topic Names, send an e-mail message to listserv@virtconf.ntia.doc.gov with the following message: subscribe topic In this case, "topic" is one of the above Listserv Topic Names, and "your name," which should appear without the brackets, is your name as it appears when you send email to someone. For more detailed assistance, you may send a message containing only the line "help" to listserv@virtconf.ntia.doc.gov, or consult any novice Internet guide on using LISTSERVs. Once subscribed to a particular Listserv Topic Name, you will begin to receive all messages posted on that topic discussion. You can reply to incoming messages or post comments to that topic discussion by sending email to: topic@virtconf.ntia.doc.gov (again, "topic" is one of the above Listserv Topic Names). Your comments also will be broadcast to all subscribers of that particular topic discussion. Note: You will not receive discussion that predates your subscription. If you wish to read discussion from before your subscription, you can use the LISTSERV archive facility to get "back issues" sent to you. Instructions are available by sending a message containing only the line "help" to listserv@virtconf.ntia.doc.gov. Or you may access previous discussion via the WWW or Gopher archives as detailed above. [If your mailer cannot reach virtconf.ntia.doc.gov, ask your admin if the mailer supports MX Records. If it does not, send mail to no-mx@virtconf.digex.net for assistance. Most mailers DO support them.] NETNEWS/USENET: You may access the conference through the following USENET newsgroups. All discussion on the newsgroup is automatically echoed on the mailing lists, and vice versa. You will see the same information via email or via netnews. alt.ntia.avail alt.ntia.redefus alt.ntia.intellec alt.ntia.standard alt.ntia.privacy alt.ntia.opnacces MODEM/DIALUP: Dial up access by modem is available at (202) 482-1199. Modem communications parameters should be set at no parity, 8 data bits, and one stop (N,8,1). Modem speeds up to 14.4 baud rate are supported. After entering your name at the prompt, a menu of options will be displayed that will allow you to participate in the conference by reading and posting comments. PUBLIC ACCESS POINT: If you do not have access to a computer, you may be able to participate in the conference through one of the many Public Access Points (PAPs) across the country. For further information, including a list of these sites, please call Paige Darden at 202/482-1551. To receive a list of Public Access Points via email, send a message to public-access@virtconf.ntia.doc.gov and a list will be automatically sent to the address from which you emailed the message. QUESTIONS: For questions or comments concerning these instructions, please contact Charles Franz at 202/482-1835 (phone) or cfranz@ntia.doc.gov (e-mail); or Mary Lou Polk at 202/482-3055 (phone) or mpolk@ntia.doc.gov (e-mail). MEDIA: Members of the media, please contact Paige Darden at 202/482-1551 (phone) or pdarden@ntia.doc.gov (e-mail). *************************************************************************** *************************************************************************** ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is an irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office, 110 Maryland Avenue, N.E., Washington, DC 20002-5675. Internet: alawash@alawash.org; Phone: 202-547-4440; Fax: 202-547-7363. Contributing to this issue: Carol H. Henderson (cch@alawash.org); Editor: Lynne E. Bradley (leb@alawash.org). ALAWON is available free of charge and is available only in electronic form. To subscribe, send the message "subscribe ala-wo [your name]" to listserv@uicvm (Bitnet) or listserv@uicvm.uic.edu (Internet). Back issues and other documents are available from the list server. To find out what's available, send the message "send ala-wo filelist" to the listserv. The ALA- WO filelist contains the list of files with the exact filename and filetype. To get a particular file, issue the command "send filename filetype" to the listserv. Do not include the quotes in your commands. All materials in the newsletter subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. For other reprinting or redistribution, address requests to the ALA Washington Office (alawash@alawash.org). *************************************************************************** ***End of file******************End of file******************End of file***