ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 9, Number 6 February 8, 2000 In this issue: Urgent Action Alert: Vote on Problematic Database Imminent; Ask Your Representative to Vote Against H.R. 354 and For H.R. 1858 Today Here we go again...! As early as the week of February 14, Rep. Howard Coble's (R-NC) problematic database bill, H.R. 354, the Collections of Information Antipiracy Act (which ALA opposes), could come up for a vote in the House. Passage of H.R. 354 is one of the top legislative priorities for the House Judiciary Committee this session. Last session, with the help of strong library advocates, we were able to successfully stop a vote on H.R. 354. Your help is urgently needed again! For more information, see the newly revised database Issue Brief at http://www.ala.org/washoff/copyright.html. If you have any questions, or if you want to share feedback from your congressional office, please contact Miriam Nisbet, legislative counsel for ALA's Office of Government Relations, at 800-941-8478 or mnisbet@alawash.org. ACTION NEEDED: Library supporters are urged to call their representative in the House (the U.S. Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121) as soon as possible with the following dual message: 1. Vote AGAINST H.R. 354, the Collections of Information Antipiracy Act -- Ask your representative to pressure House leadership to stop or postpone a vote on H.R. 354. If it should come up for a floor vote, ask your representative to vote AGAINST H.R. 354. -- Emphasize that the library and broader user communities DO NOT support H.R. 354, nor do recent changes to the bill meet our concerns. (According to some advocates, congressional offices were told that H.R. 354 now meets library concerns. This is NOT true!) 2. Vote FOR H.R. 1858, the Consumer and Investor Access to Information Act -- Ask your representative to vote FOR H.R. 1858, sponsored by Rep. Thomas Bliley (R-VA), if it should come up for a floor vote. H.R. 1858 is supported by virtually every major national library and education association, the research and scientific community and many high-technology industry groups. BACKGROUND: Why ALA opposes H.R. 354, the Collections of Information Antipiracy Act -- H.R. 354 is a far reaching, overly broad bill that: -- does not protect fair use; -- would protect facts, which copyright has never protected; -- would allow a producer or publisher unprecedented control over uses of information including downstream, transformative use of facts and government-produced data contained in the database -- could hinder the progress of science, education, and research Why ALA supports H.R. 1858, the Consumer and Investor Access to Information Act -- H.R. 1858, the preferred database bill, would: -- preserve the fair use of information and keep factual information in the public domain; -- prevent unfair competition in the form of parasitic copying; -- promote the progress of science, education, and research; -- protect value-added publishers and their products; and -- provide safeguards against monopolistic pricing FURTHER INFORMATION: ALA Testimony: The testimony of James Neal for several library groups on both H.R. 354 and H.R. 1858 is available at http://www.ala.org/washoff/neal2.html Joint Statement: The joint statement endorsed by ALA and other library groups in support of a narrowly tailored approach such as H.R. 1858 is available at http://www.databasedata.org/Statement/statement.html Text of the Bills: The text of each bill, together with Chairman Bliley's remarks, plus other information about the bills, are available at a Web site maintained by a coalition dedicated to working with Congress towards balanced and narrowly tailored database protection, is available at http://www.databasedata.org/Statement/statement.html ****** 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. To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. 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; Editor: Deirdre Herman. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Mary Costabile, Peter Kaplan, Miriam Nisbet and Claudette Tennant. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Jennifer Hendrix, Carrie Russell and Saundra Shirley.