[1] From: David Green <david@ninch.org> (110)
Subject: House Commerce Committee Adopts Digital Copyright Bill
[2] From: David Green <david@ninch.org> (181)
Subject: Call for Hold on Article 2B
[3] From: David Green <david@ninch.org> (78)
Subject: UK's Visual Arts Data Service: User Needs Workshop
Report
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 16:00:57 -0500
From: David Green <david@ninch.org>
Subject: House Commerce Committee Adopts Digital Copyright Bill
NINCH ANNOUNCEMENT
July 17, 1998
HOUSE COMMERCE COMMITTEE ADOPTS DIGITAL COPYRIGHT BILL
"Fair Use" a Major Topic of Debate
Below is an extract from today's NCC Washington Update, reporting on the
adoption by the House Commerce Committee of the Digital Millennium
Copyright Act of 1998.
The committee has generally succeeded in making the bill more responsive to
more sets of needs than the version of this bill passed by the Judiciary
Committee. Fair Use was an especially strong subject for discussion, and
was at the heart of an amendment submitted by Representative Scott Klug
(R-WI).
This amendment "strikes from the bill a section prohibiting an individual's
circumvention of technological protection measures, such as encryption used
to prevent access to copyrighted material, and calls on the Secretary of
Commerce to conduct a two year review of this section, taking into
consideration the "public interest," before issuing formal regulations on
[its] implementation."
The amendment also called for a biennial review "to ensure that 'balance'
between creators and users is achieved in the implementation of the law."
According to a statement released by the Digital Future Coalition, "H.R.
2281, as passed by the House Commerce Committee, will maintain the
owner/user balance and will protect the rights of consumers, students,
educators, and scholars to make use of digital works and multi-media for
school reports, research, teaching, and a host of other currently
permissible activities. The competing bill will impose a "pay-per-use"
model of information commerce in the network environment."
Page Miller also notes that with pledged support from Representative Rick
Boucher (D-VA) and others, this bill might finally be "on a very fast track
toward passage."
David Green
===========
===========
>Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 14:38:38 -0400 (EDT)
>From: Page Miller <pagem@CapAccess.org>
>>
>NCC Washington Update, vol. 4, #27, July 17, 1998
> by Page Putnam Miller, Director of the National Coordinating
> Committee for the Promotion of History <pagem@capaccess.org>
>
>1. Senate Appropriations Committee Votes Increases
> For the National Archives and NHPRC
>2. Senator Dodd Introduces Legislation To Identify and
> Preserve Women's History Sites
>3. House Commerce Committee Adopts Digital
> Copyright Bill
>4. Head of CIA Issues Statement on Declassification
>
>>SNIP>>
>3. House Commerce Committee Adopts Digital Copyright Bill -- After
>postponing four announced meetings, the House Commerce Committee met on
>July 17 to consider H.R. 2281, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of
>1998, which the Subcommittee on Telecommunications, Trade and Consumer
>Protection endorsed on June 17. This bill, as amended, is quite different
>from the version adopted by the House Judiciary Committee and is instead
>similar to S.2037, which the Senate passed 99 to 0 on May 14. In addition
>to implementing the World Intellectual Property Organization treaties on
>copyright and to providing limits to the copyright infringement liability
>of on-line Internet service providers, the House Commerce and the Senate
>bills address issues of distance education and digital preservation for
>libraries and archives.
>
>The House Commerce Committee adopted by unanimous agreement several
>amendments designed to further refine the bill. In the final vote on the
>amended bill, there were no negative votes. The amendments included
>provisions to increase the protection of privacy on the Internet, to
>foster encryption research, to affirm the principle of "fair use" in the
>digital environment, to ensure that nothing in the bill would have a
>negative impact on first amendment rights, and to conduct a study on the
>ability of electronic commerce to flourish on the Internet. The Committee
>spent the most time discussing the amendment put forward by Representative
>Scott Klug (R-WI) to address concerns of "fair use." The amendment
>strikes from the bill a section prohibiting an individual's circumvention
>of technological protection measures, such as encryption used to prevent
>access to copyrighted material, and calls on the Secretary of Commerce to
>conduct a two year review of this section, taking into consideration the
>"public interest," before issuing formal regulations on the implementation
>of this section. Additionally the amendment has a provision requiring a
>review every two years thereafter of this section to ensure that "balance"
>between creators and users is achieved in the implementation of the law.
>Representative Klug stressed that a balance between the content creators
>and users is necessary to insure that "copyright owners cannot lock up
>information." Representative Billy Tauzin (R-LA) noted that the
>compromise gives creators protection and provides for information sharing
>by libraries and schools.
>
>In light of the very strong support voiced for the amended bill, including
>a statement by Representative Rick Boucher (D-VA) saying that he would
>support this bill on the House floor, it appears that some of the
>stumbling blocks have been worked out and that the bill may now be on a
>very fast track toward passage.
>
>* * * * * * * * * * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>NCC invites you to redistribute the NCC Washington Updates.
>A complete backfile of these reports is maintained by H-Net.
>See World Wide Web: http://h-net.msu.edu/~ncc/
>* * * * * ** * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
===============================================================
David L. Green
Executive Director
NATIONAL INITIATIVE FOR A NETWORKED CULTURAL HERITAGE
21 Dupont Circle, NW
Washington DC 20036
www-ninch.cni.org
david@ninch.org
202/296-5346 202/872-0886 fax
==============================================================
See and search back issues of NINCH-ANNOUNCE at
<http://www.cni.org/Hforums/ninch-announce/>.
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 16:20:51 -0500
From: David Green <david@ninch.org>
Subject: Call for Hold on Article 2B
NINCH ANNOUNCEMENT
July 17, 1998
PRESS RELEASE ON RESULTS OF UC BERKELEY CONFERENCE ON ARTICLE 2B
<http://sims.berkeley.edu/BCLT/events/ucc2b/wrap-up.html>
Just as prospects for more user-friendly and more balanced federal digital
copyright legislation begin to look a little brighter, we are reminded that
the Uniform Commercial Code revisions, governing contract law, are still
looking quite bleak, especially with regard to the future of fair use in
the digital environment.
Below is a University of California, Berkeley, press release, part of the
"wrap-up" of the April conference held by the Berkeley Center for Law and
Technology on "Intellectual Property and Contract Law: The Impact of
Article 2B."
For background on UCC 2B, see the home page of the conference website:
<http://sims.berkeley.edu/BCLT/events/ucc2b/>
David Green
===========
>From: Ann Okerson <aokerson@pantheon.yale.edu>
>>To: liblicense-l@lists.yale.edu
>Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 12:21:21 -0400 (EDT)
>
>Of possible interest to readers of liblicense-l.
>
>FROM:
>Dan L. Burk
>Seton Hall University
>burkdanl@shu.edu
>---------------------------
>
>*****************************************************************************
>
>7/16/98
>File #14802
>
>UC Berkeley experts call for
>immediate hold on proposed legislation
>to regulate information commerce
>
>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> Berkeley - A "dangerously ill-conceived law" to regulate all
>transactions in information is hurtling toward enactment despite the
>enormous legal tangles it will cause, say UC Berkeley experts, who are
>calling for another look at the legislation before it is approved.
>
> If the proposed Article 2B of the Uniform Commercial Code "is
>enacted by state legislatures over the next six months, it would be a
>disaster," said Professor Pamela Samuelson of the University of
>California, Berkeley. She said it could affect everything from whether
>book publishers take a cue from software developers and start "shrink
>wrapping" books to restrict sharing to whether Internet robots can make
>legally binding contracts for computer users who unleash them.
>
> Despite the awesome breadth of the proposed legislation and the
>need to consider its implications, "drafters of this 'model' law intend
>to push forward as hard and as fast as they can to get approval so that
>states will begin enacting it as soon as this fall," Samuelson said.
>
> A key vote on the fate of the proposed law will be held July
>24-31 at the meeting of the National Conference of Commissioners of
>Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) in Cleveland, Ohio. They intend to discuss
>and vote on the text of 2B section-by-section. Samuelson and many other
>experts hope NCCUSL can be persuaded to slow down and take a hard look
>at Article 2B before giving the go ahead to any sections of the law.
>
> Article 2B proposes to regulate almost all transactions in
>information. It is a so-called "model law" that each state legislature
>can accept or reject. States usually adopt model laws put forward in
>the Uniform Commercial Code so that business transactions across state
>lines remain consistent.
>
> Among other effects, Article 2B could chill the "fair use"
>doctrine that the public and libraries depend on to share information.
>Like computer software, which is often packaged with the admonition that
>whoever breaks the seal is bound by the terms of an enclosed
>manufacturer's contract, so too books could be wrapped in cellophane and
>sold with all types of limitations.
>
> The buyer could even be "barred from passing the purchased copy
>onto a friend," according to a paper presented at a recent UC Berkeley
>conference by David Nimmer, Elliot Brown and Gary Frischling of the Los
>Angeles law firm Irell & Manella LLP. "Nor is there any reason that the
>publisher should stop there," the paper went on, pointing out the
>ridiculous breadth of the law as currently proposed. "It could likewise
>require the reader not to skip chapters, not to read any paragraph more
>than three times, not to reveal the surprise plot twists to family or
>acquaintances, and certainly not to quote in a book review the few
>paragraphs that the fair use doctrine would otherwise permit."
>
> People "have no idea how dramatically the relationship to
>information is going to change if and when Article 2B passes," said
>Professor Peter Lyman, former head of the UC Berkeley library system,
>one of the most distinguished research libraries in the country. "In
>fact, I doubt if libraries will continue to exist in their present
>form."
>
> At the recent conference organized by the Berkeley Center for
>Law and Technology and the Institute of Management, Innovation and
>Organization at UC Berkeley, those expressing doubts about whether
>Article 2B is the right set of rules for the sale of information
>included representatives from sectors as diverse as Silicon Valley law
>firms, major motion picture companies, top accounting firms, computer
>technology companies and the World Bank.
>
> But despite such intensifying concerns, "proponents of Article
>2B want it to be the commercial law of the global information economy,"
>said Samuelson, who holds a joint appointment with UC Berkeley's School
>of Information Management & Systems and the Boalt Hall School of Law.
>
> Others concerned with Article 2B include:
>
>* James Davis of Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, who criticized
>Article 2B's validation of contracts by electronic agents, for instance
>authorizing Internet robots to enter into binding sales. He felt giving
>such contracts the nod was premature since Internet robot technology is
>at best only being tested.
>
>* Rochelle Dreyfuss of the New York University Law School said Article
>2B would affect U.S. innovation - a vital engine driving business
>entrepreneurship and economic growth - by discouraging information
>sharing.
>
>* Michelle Kane of Walt Disney Company said Article 2B was
>"software-centric" - written from the point of view of the software
>industry - and expressed dismay that concerns of the motion picture
>industry had been ignored by the drafting committee.
>
>* Matthew Lynde of Price Waterhouse, a major accounting and consulting
>firm whose clients would be greatly affected by Article 2B, was unable
>to take a position on Article 2B because the legislation was too
>complicated to determine its implications for Price Waterhouse.
>
>* Copyright scholars such as Jerome Reichman of Vanderbilt Law School
>and Charles McManis of Washington University argued forcefully for
>continuing "fair use" principles, which Article 2B possibly jeopardizes,
>as a way to maintain a balance between information provider and user
>interests.
>
> At a May 14 meeting in Washington, D.C., the American Law
>Institute, one of the two original sponsors of the Article 2B effort,
>decided the legislation needs work before it is ready for approval,
>raising many of same objections that surfaced at the Berkeley
>conference.
>
> The other sponsor of the legislation - the National Conference
>of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws, which meets this month - is
>under pressure to withhold approval, said Samuelson.
>
> However the chair of the Article 2B drafting committee, Carlyle
>Ring, continues to insist that the U.S. get on with adopting a model
>law on licensing information to ensure that its rules become the
>standard for the global information economy, said Samuelson.
>
> "What I want to see happen," said Samuelson, "is for Article 2B
>to be pared down to the bare minimum necessary to jump-start electronic
>commerce and then watch how that commerce develops before we put any
>more legislation in place."
>
> She cites Mark Lemley of the University of Texas Law School, who
>called for a moratorium on Article 2B until affected parties can study
>the draft, understand its meaning, and suggest revisions. Article 2B,
>Lemley said, should reflect existing commercial practice and not
>untested new rules that could prove unworkable.
>
>### Note:
>
>For further
>information, contact Pamela Samuelson at (510) 642-6775
><pam@sims.berkeley.edu>. Media contacts: Kathleen Scalise, (510)
>643-7741, <kms@uclink.berkeley.edu> or David Irons, (510) 642-2734,
><irons@haas.berkeley.edu>
>
>
>________________________________________
>
>David Irons
>AScribe / The Public Interest Newswire
>2680 Bancroft Way, Suite B-300
>Berkeley, CA 94704
>510-704-0200
>510-704-1245 fax
>
--[3]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 11:55:23 -0500
From: David Green <david@ninch.org>
Subject: UK's Visual Arts Data Service: User Needs Workshop Report
NINCH ANNOUNCEMENT
July 20, 1998
SCHOLARLY EXPLOITATION OF DIGITAL RESOURCES:
Workshop Report on User Needs from UK's
VISUAL ARTS DATA SERVICE (VADS)
<http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/wkshp1.html>
Readers will probably be interested in the latest of the series of reports
on "Scholarly Exploitation of Digital Resources," by the five service
providers of the UK's Arts & Humanities Data Service. The latest is the
report on a workshop on user needs by the Visual Arts Data Service and is
available at <http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/wkshp1.html>.
This report is a companion to the report of the History Data Service on the
needs of historians
<http://hds.essex.ac.uk/reports/user_needs/draft_report01.stm> and of the
broad "National Expert Workshop," at <http://ahds.ac.uk/users/natrep.html>.
Other reports are in the pipeline.
Although much of the report pertains to how VADS does its work, readers
will probably be most interested in the recommendations of the report
(broken down under Data Use; Data Creation; the User Support Landscape and
the Role of the VADS) at <http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/wkshp6.html>.
David Green
===========
>Date: Mon, 20 Jul 1998 14:49:56 +0100 ()
>>From: Neil Beagrie <neil.beagrie@ahds.ac.uk>
>
>
>*VADS User Needs Workshop Report Announcement*
>
>The Report containing the results, analysis and recommendations of the
>VADS User Needs Workshop, held in Edinburgh April 1998, are now
>available at:
>
>http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/wkshp1.html
>
>The VADS User Needs Workshop (April 1998) was a key exercise in
>determining the best way in which VADS can expand, develop and tailor
>its services to the visual arts community, including researchers,
>teachers and students of the visual arts. As well as providing a
>snapshot of current practice among the community, the Workshop was
>intended to facilitate the setting up and development of the service in
>three crucial respects:
> * to help us understand more about how electronic resources are being
>used now by members of our community
> * to help us target the services of VADS more closely to the
>community's electronic information provision, creation and management
>needs
> * to help us build up an accurate picture of what digital resources
>have been already created by the community; how they are being used; and
>what we can do to help maximise the investment in these resources
>
>>From the conclusions of the Workshop, it is possible to deduce that in
>order for digital resources to realise their full potential within the
>academic community much work now has to be done supporting and
>encouraging the visual arts community in creating high quality resources
>suitable for re-use. This can be achieved in a variety of ways
>including training and support, with the promotion of subjects relevant
>to their field of work, including copyright, cataloguing standards and
>resource creation.
>
>
>--
>*Janine Rymer**Visual Arts Data Service*
>*Surrey Institute of Art & Design**Farnham*
>*e-mail: janine@vads.ahds.ac.uk** http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/*
>*tel: 01252 892724**fax: 01252 892725*
>
===============================================================
David L. Green
Executive Director
NATIONAL INITIATIVE FOR A NETWORKED CULTURAL HERITAGE
21 Dupont Circle, NW
Washington DC 20036
www-ninch.cni.org
david@ninch.org
202/296-5346 202/872-0886 fax
==============================================================
See and search back issues of NINCH-ANNOUNCE at
<http://www.cni.org/Hforums/ninch-announce/>.
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