The Section 108 Study Group, "a select committee of copyright experts charged with updating for the digital world the Copyright Act's balance between the rights of creators and copyright owners and the needs of libraries and archives", has released its report, dated March 2008. The Study Group was "convened [in 2005] as an independent group by the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation program of the Library of Congress and by the U.S. Copyright Office".
... The diverse 19-member panel was chartered in 2005 to inform legislative changes to update the Copyright Act's exception for libraries and archives for the digital age, but it remains unclear how quickly, or if, the group's carefully-worded, conditioned recommendations will ever make it into law. ...
Notably, the report recommended the section 108 exception be extended to museums, which are currently ineligible. That, however, represents the only clear, unambiguous recommendation in the report. The others include broad language that could be interpreted many ways by legislators. For example, the report suggests section 108's "three copy rule," which permits libraries make up to three copies of a published work for replacement purposes, be amended to allow "a limited number of copies as reasonably necessary" to create and maintain "a single replacement copy." That point is further conditioned, however ...
Preservation was perhaps the major issue addressed in the report, but once again, the broad strokes leave significant latitude for legislators. The group agreed that libraries and museums should be able to make copies of "at risk" works, but suggested conditioning that upon limiting those copies to a "reasonably necessary" number of copies, as well as "restricting access" to the "preservation copies." That recommendation also enumerated a laundry list of qualifications to be met before even determining which institutions can avail themselves of this exception ...
Another major issue concerned libraries' ability to capture "publicly disseminated online content, including web sites." The group recommended that libraries be allowed to archive and make this content available for sites that are not restricted by access controls, such as passwords, but also should offer an "opt-out" for rights holders-except for the Library of Congress, which is to be allowed to capture such content regardless of the owner's desire to opt out. ...
The report, meanwhile, listed a number of issues the group considered but could not agree on-most prominently, digital Interlibrary Loan (ILL). The group acknowledged that "the single-copy restriction on copying" for ILL be "replaced with a more flexible standard" but offered no specific guidance. ...
Posted by
Gavin Baker at 3/31/2008 11:05:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
