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ALAWON Volume 5, Number 77
ISSN 1069-7799 November 1, 1996
American Library Association Washington Office Newsline
In this issue: (156 lines)
COMMENTS NEEDED: ALA ACTIVITIES HELP OPEN INTERNATIONAL
COPYRIGHT TREATY PROPOSALS TO RARE ROUND OF PUBLIC COMMENTS
--FILE NOW!
_________________________________________________________________
COMMENTS NEEDED: ALA ACTIVITIES HELP OPEN INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT
TREATY PROPOSALS TO RARE ROUND OF PUBLIC COMMENTS--FILE NOW!
Library supporters are strongly urged to disseminate this
bulletin widely and to take advantage of the opportunity
announced in the Federal Register of October 17 (vol. 61, no. 20,
pgs. 54159-60) to comment on pending international treaty
proposals now supported by the Executive Branch. If adopted in
December as written, the three proposed treaties could severely
limit Congress' ability to preserve Fair Use, facilitate browsing
on the Internet, foster the use of computers in distance
education, and encourage basic scientific and academic research.
The Patent and Trademark Office's (PTO) request for comments in
the Federal Register indicates the Administration is
comprehensively reexamining whether and how United States
negotiators should proceed. With negotiations set to begin on
December 2, now is the time for librarians and educators to make
clear their commitment to Fair Use, balanced copyright law and
full Congressional latitude to build consensus on these critical
copyright and related issues. For further information, see the
BACKGROUND section below.
ACTION NEEDED: On or before Friday, November 22,1996 write AND
e-mail the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Please submit all
comments both by mail and electronically, if possible. Comments
should be mailed to Ms. Carmen Guzman Lowrey, Associate
Commissioner for Governmental and International Affairs,
Commissioner of Patents and Trademarks, Box 4, Patent and
Trademark Office, Washington, D.C. 20231. Electronic submissions
should be e-mailed to Mr. Keith Kupferschmid at
[log in to unmask]
Broad redistribution of this notice and submission of comments
are strongly encouraged.
THE MESSAGE:
1. Librarians and educators do not want Congress' flexibility
to keep American copyright law fairly balanced diminished or
destroyed by the premature adoption of international treaties
which remain highly controversial in both the public and private
sectors here at home.
2. You (and/or your institution) support building a domestic
consensus on how to best balance copyright law in the digital
age.
3. You oppose prematurely changing international law in any way
that risks reducing Congress' flexibility to fully debate and
adopt policy that works for business and the public in this
complicated area of the law.
4. Adoption of the pending treaty proposals presents precisely
that kind of risk, and that the pending treaty proposals should
be amended in a broadly supported manner to eliminate that risk.
If such amendments are not possible, the three treaty proposals
should be thoroughly discussed in Geneva in December, but action
on their sections dealing with digital technology should be
deferred until Congress (and the world) can better understand and
define the proposals' potential impact on business, education and
the public at large.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: For additional analysis and background
information, please access the Digital Future Coalition's Web
site at or phone 800/941-8478, extension
223. Copies of the full text of the proposed treaties are
available electronically through the Library of Congress at
.
For those in or near Washington, D.C., a public briefing on the
proposed treaties will be held on November 12, 1996, from 1 p.m.
to 5 p.m. in Marriott's Crystal Forum, a part of the Crystal City
Marriott Hotel, 1999 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Arlington, VA. Mr.
Jukka Liedes of Finland, Chairman of WIPO's Committee of Experts,
will discuss the texts and answer questions. It is not necessary
to register for the public briefing. A transcript of the
briefing will available at the Patent and Trademark Office's Web
site at .
BACKGROUND: ALA, the DFC, and many others in industry, academia,
and the private sector have worked intensely for the past year to
encourage the Administration to take a fresh look at what the
United States' official position should be in international
copyright treaty negotiations to convene in Geneva early this
December. The recent (October 17, pgs. 54159-60) Federal Register
request for comments signals the beginning of that process.
ALA, the DFC, and fellow library organizations have been
concerned from the outset of the Congressional debate in
September 1995 that proposals by the U.S. and other nations to
make substantial changes in international law similar to those
proposed in the NII Legislation could restrict the scope of
Congressional consideration next year and force the adoption of
new laws not previously debated. If adopted, ALA and the DFC
believe that such treaties could seriously undermine Congress'
ability to preserve Fair Use, hinder efforts to use digital
technology for library preservation efforts, cripple distance
education (also called "asynchronous learning"), and bar the
manufacture of devices that facilitate these critical activities.
ALA has taken a lead role through the DFC to educate policymakers
about the sweeping implications of recent proposals to update
copyright law for the digital age. In the just-concluded 104th
Congrsmartess, those efforts were rewarded with Congress'
recognition that it would have been premature to pass the NII
legislation, the National Information Infrastructure Copyright
Protection Act [S. 1284/H.R. 2441], in its original form and that
action on any such bill should be deferred until next year.
The present Administration has been a source and strong proponent
not only of the NII Legislation (which it authored), but of the
three pending international treaty proposals before the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), an arm of the United
Nations. More than 100 WIPO member nations will meet in Geneva
December 2-20, 1996 in a formal Diplomatic Conference to determine
whether portions of these copyright treaties dealing with digital
technology (and the proposed database agreement)are ready for
international adoption and, if so, in what form.
Other new international proposals, if adopted, would require
Congress to enact an entirely new legal regime--separate from and
in addition to copyright protection--for databases now outside
the scope of copyright, such as compiled raw scientific data and
telephone "white pages." Moreover, under this database proposal
--never scrutinized by Congress--government information and other
public domain material could be placed practically or financially
off limits to entrepreneurs, researchers, scholars, students and
the public at large.
_________________________________________________________________
ALAWON is a free, irregular publication of the American Library
Association Washington Office. To subscribe, send the message
"subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname]" to . ALAWON archives gopher.ala.org; select ALA Washington
Office Newsline. Visit our Web site at .
ALA Washington Office 202.628.8410 (V)
1301 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, #403 202.628.8419 (F)
Washington, DC 20004-1701 Lynne E. Bradley, Editor
<[log in to unmask]> <[log in to unmask]>
Contributors: Adam M. Eisgrau
Deirdre A. Herman
All materials subject to copyright by the American Library
Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial
purposes with appropriate credits.
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