----------------------------Original message----------------------------
This posting is in response to Gregg Most's reposting
Macie Hall's (Tufts University, VRA Intellectual
Property Rights, and VRA rep to CONFU) reponse to a
comment of mine regarding the recent CAA-ACLS (CONFU) Town
meeting. Macie's description is one point of view.
But since she does correct me, I think you might want
to see my posting that she corrected. I stand
by everything I said. My original posting below
was sent to the Visual Resources Association
listserv, and to NINCH organizer David Green.
In a later posting to cni-copyright listserv I alerted
people who were about to hear the Multimedia
Teleconference that they should be alert for what I
consider duplicitous language, language that
makes it sound as if the three CONFU guidelines (Digital
Images Archives, Multimedia, and Distance Learning) were
already adopted, had been drawn up by congressional
subcommittees, had the force of law, or were non-controversial.
Each town hall meeting (there are 3 to come: Indianapolis,
while we are at the 25th annual conference in San Antonio;
Portland, Oregon in September; and one in May that I have
forgotten) is organized under the auspices of CAA/ACLS.
But each town hall meeting will have different speakers,
so the speakers and agenda are set by individual
organizers. Kenny Crews will organize the Indianpolis
meeting, and Christine Sundt the Portland meeting.
The tenor of these meetings should be very different
from the New York City meeting. But New York was
an achievement in its own way for the quickness with
which it was organized and disseminated, if not for
the full flow of divergent opinions.
Maryly Snow
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> I know many VRA attendees were disappointed that CAA and
> ACLS decided at the last moment to hold a town meeting
> in NYC to discuss fair use of digital images. It was difficult
> to change air reservations at the last moment. Still, a few of
> intrepid vr curators were able to attend. In spite of a stellar
> listing list of speakers, the day was upsetting and uneven.
>
> Patricia Williams, executive director of American Association of
> Museums, stated out front that she would recommend to
> her executive board adoption of the fair use guidelines.
> She discussed the guidelines as if they had already been
> adopted and were in effect. Cameron Kitchen, also from AAM,
> made it sound as if the guidelines were drawn up by a congressional
> subcommittee, treating them with an official primatur far beyond
> what is warranted.
>
> Later in the day, after Kitchen and Willians had left,
> Adam Eisgrau, American Library Association (ALA) explained why
> the ALA Executive Board voted to not endorse ANY of the
> guidelines. His reasons were that it is premature to
> develop hard and fast guidelines: technology is changing;
> uses are changing; our understanding of how to use the
> Web for education and information delivery is changing.
> That we need guidelines with a lower case g, not official
> guidelines that appear to have the force of law, guidelines
> with a capital G. That the guidelines were drawn up with
> participation by unequal representation, that the guidelines
> were developed in isolation. Each of the CONFU groups did
> meet in plenary sessions, but most of the education of
> participants occurred in individual meetings. Furthermore
> and more importantly, all the CONFU meetings occurred outside
> the scope of educational, public policy, and social policy discussions.
>
> Barbara English, University of Maryland legal counsel distinguished
> herself and her institution by adopting a particularly conservative
> and hard line approach to fair use, boldly stating that it was
> illegal to make a photograph of a painting without the permission of
> the copyright holder, as if fair use had never existed at all.
> This was in such sharp contrast to the eminently
> reasonable and reassuring words of Johns Hopkins legal counsel Fred
> de Kuyper from a few days prior that most of the VR curators in the
> audience were visibly distressed.
>
> Kenny Crews, also speaking later in the day after Barbara English and
> Patricia Williams had departed, stated that the 4 fair use factors had been
> very confusing, and now we had a proposal for 12 factors, instead of
> making decisions easier to reach, it would be harder. Kenny will be
> organizing the Indianopolis Town Hall meeting April 2, a real shame in
> scheduling because so many people will be attending ARLIS in San Antonio
> at that time.
>
> Macie Hall spoke eloquently and movingly, but if you heard her at VRA
> you know what she had to say. Same with Kathleen Cohen.
> It was too bad that the educational use speakers were scheduled for
> the end of the day. It was also too bad that open interchange fo
> ideas did not occur. After all, isn't that what a town meeting of
> about?
> It was a shame that the pro-CONFU digital images in education were
> mostly not educators, and that all the pro-CONFU digital images people
> left the town hall meeting before their heard another point of view.
>
> Your report from the field,
> Maryly Snow
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>