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Error - unable to initiate communication with LISTSERV (errno=10061, phase=CONNECT, target=127.0.0.1:2306). The server is probably not started. ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- ================================================================= 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. ================================================================= ================== RFC 822 Headers ================== Received: (from daemon@localhost) by CalState.EDU (8.7.6/8.6.12) id TAA25706 for csu-suny-list; Wed, 6 Nov 1996 19:41:32 -0800 Received: from DHVX20.CSUDH.EDU (dhvx20.csudh.EDU [155.135.1.1]) by CalState.EDU (8.7.6/8.6.12) with ESMTP id TAA25703 for <[log in to unmask]>; Wed, 6 Nov 1996 19:41:30 -0800 From: [log in to unmask] Received: from DHVX20.CSUDH.EDU by DHVX20.CSUDH.EDU (PMDF V5.0-6 #18721) id <[log in to unmask]> for [log in to unmask]; Wed, 06 Nov 1996 19:40:40 -0800 (PST) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 1996 19:40:40 -0800 (PST) Subject: FYI - We're pleased to see ALA's copyright notice! To: [log in to unmask] Message-id: <[log in to unmask]> X-VMS-To: SMTP%"[log in to unmask]" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT