ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
Volume 11, Number 82
October 4, 2002

In This Issue: Good News! Congress Passes the Technology Education and Copyright Harmonization Act (TEACH)

Critical distance education legislation, the TEACH Act, has now passed both houses of Congress as an amendment to the Justice Department reauthorization bill (H.R. 5512). According to Senator Leahy the language of this legislation is identical to that of the Hatch-Leahy TEACH Act that the Senate passed in June 2001 (CR S9889). ALA has long supported this version. The President is expected to sign H.R. 5512 soon and the TEACH Act will go into effect immediately. 

The TEACH Act expands face-to-face teaching exemptions in the copyright law, allowing teachers and faculty to use copyrighted works in the "digital classroom" without prior permission from the copyright holder. The law is complex and details numerous responsibilities that must be met before educational institutions (including their libraries) can benefit from the exemptions.

The ALA Washington Office has created a TEACH Web site to help members understand the complexities of TEACH (www.ala.org/washoff/teach.html). In addition, the Office for Information Technology Policy will offer an e-mail tutorial on distance education and copyright in the near future. 

Watch the Washington Office Web site and ALAWON for more information. 

Reminder: Please ask Congressional representatives to co-sponsor fair use legislation H.R. 5544

Ask your Congressional representatives to co-sponsor the "Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act" (DMCRA) introduced by Reps. Rick Boucher (D-Va) and John Doolittle (R-Ca) on October 3rd. The bill number, which was not published until late yesterday, is H.R. 5544. 

See yesterday's ALAWON for more information about this groundbreaking legislation that will restore fair use.    
DMCRA is the first legislation since 1998 to address the rights and needs of library users, researchers, and consumers who wish to use digital works or study digital technologies.  



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ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff.  Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Camille Bowman, Mary Costabile, Don Essex, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Jennifer Hendrix, Carrie Russell, Claudette Tennant. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.