ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 11, Number 21 March 22, 2002 In This Issue: 1. Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearing on copyright protection and announces a new website page 2. Senator Hollings introduces copyright protection bill 1. Senate Judiciary Committee holds hearing on copyright protection and announces a new website page On March 14, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on "Competition, Innovation and Public Policy in the Digital Age: Is the Marketplace Working to Protect Digital Creative Works?". The hearings were scheduled to consider the need for congressional mandates for technological protection devices to prevent piracy. Hearing presenters included Richard Parsons, AOL Time Warner; Craig Barrett, Intel Corporation; Jonathan Taplin, Intertainer; Joe Kraus, DigitalConsumer.org; and, Justin Hughes, UCLA Law School. The Senate Judiciary Committee has expanded its website to include a section called " Protecting Creative Works in a Digital Age: What is at Stake for Content Creators, Purveyors and Users?" http://judiciary.senate.gov The page will note the progress reports from the technology and content community negotiations on digital rights management issues and has a place for comments from consumers. Chairman Patrick Leahy (VT) emphasized the committee's historical role in balancing the rights and interests of consumers, creators and innovators. Senator Leahy and others on the committee and on the panel agreed that piracy of movies, music and other creative content was a serious economic problem but that preserving the rights of consumers to flexibly use legally purchased copyrighted material is equally as important. The controversy rests in determining how to resolve it without compromising the rights of consumers. Movie studios, music publishers and other content providers have been lobbying heavily for Congress to develop standards for digital rights management systems (DRMs) and to require consumer electronic firms to install them. The content providers have not been able to privately resolve their differences with technology firms on this issue. All parties agree that successful technological copyright protection is only possible if installed at the source of the distribution chain: DRMs must be installed in the software. Senator Leahy stated that there would be no legislation this year unless the parties involved can resolve their differences. The chairman is averse to a government-mandated standard. He emphasized that it was crucial to develop standards that prevented piracy but that also did not compromise fair use rights. He requested that the technology and content industries keep the committee apprised of their progress. Joe Kraus, the founder of excite.com and the new digitalconsumer.org cautioned the committee about accepting standards envisioned by the content community (i.e. movie studios) who "will not admit that there is such a thing as fair use. They will not admit that once consumers have legally purchased media that they should be free to engage with it in a wide variety of personal uses. This denial persists despite 30 years of Congressional action and Supreme Court rulings affirming consumers' fair use rights." He has founded a digital consumer advocacy group that is pressing Congress to accept a digital consumer bill of rights. (www.digitalconsumer.org) This hearing follows the recent hearings held by the Senate Commerce Committee on the same issues. Unlike Senator Leahy, Commerce Committee Chairman Fritz Hollings (SC) is disposed to introduce a bill mandating digital rights management capability but is waiting also for the technology and content communities to resolve their differences. 2. Senator Hollings introduces copyright protection bill On March 21, 2002, Senator Fritz Hollings (D-SC) introduced "The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Act of 2002" (S 2048). This bill seeks to provide Federal regulations that will protect digital content and promote broadband and the transition to digital television by providing for private sector development of technological protection devices. Movie studios and other digital content providers have been lobbying heavily for Congressional intervention to prevent the billions of dollars in profit lost to online piracy. Consumer electronics manufacturers and content providers like the movie studios have been negotiating for years over this issue and Sen. Hollings acknowledges that he hopes this bill will provide a "nudge" to those parties to resolve their disagreements. Sen. Hollings promises that the bill "takes into account the limitations on exclusive rights of copyright holders, including the fair use doctrine." The WO will be closely monitoring the developments regarding this legislation and will keep everyone posted. The full text of the bill will be available at www.thomas.gov by next week but can be found now at www.wired.com. ****** ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. 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