Thursday, November 30, 2000

Scholars Want Permission to Copy Electronic Materials By ANDREA L. FOSTER Washington Scholars and library groups pressed the U.S. Copyright Office on Wednesday to support amending federal copyright law to explicitly allow for copying and distribution of electronic material. They want the office to urge Congress to revise the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to specify that a buyer of copyrighted electronic material can resell, lend, or share that material without the copyright holder's consent -- a provision known as the first-sale doctrine. In their license agreements with users of electronic material such as software and databases, publishers have been trying to set limits on the copying and distribution of online material. But speakers at Wednesday's hearing, representing universities and libraries, were seeking to amend the law so that it would override those limits. James G. Neal, dean of university libraries at the Johns Hopkins University, said the first-sale doctrine should permit the reproduction of online material so that it can be shared with students and scholars, like hard-copy material. "The first sale doctrine must be viewed as media-neutral and technology-neutral," he said. Mr. Neal, joined by Rodney Petersen, director of policy and planning for the information technology office of the University of Maryland at College Park, spoke at the hearing on behalf of the American Association of Law Libraries, the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, the Medical Library Association, and the Special Libraries Association. The Copyright Office, part of the U.S. Library of Congress, held the hearing in preparation for its report to Congress on February 28 on the effects of provisions of the digital copyright act having to do with electronic commerce and intellectual property. The act, which became law on October 28, 1998, updated copyright law for a digital environment. Arguing against changing the first-sale doctrine were the Motion Picture Association of America, Time Warner Inc. and the Association of American Publishers, among others. Representatives of those organizations warned that extending the first-sale doctrine to digital works could enable widespread piracy of copyrighted works, and eventually could discourage copyright holders from making their works available electronically. "We would have an Internet superhighway with no cars because content owners would not want to provide information in digital form," said Bernard R. Sorkin, a lawyer for Time Warner. Fritz E. Attaway, executive vice president of government relations for the Motion Picture Association of America, dismissed as unfounded the library groups' predictions that scholarship would be threatened by restrictions on the copying of electronic material. "Those who demand that the D.M.C.A. be reopened and the first-sale doctrine be amended offer as support only speculation about what future technology and marketing practices may develop, and possible hypothetical conflicts that could arise," Mr. Attaway said. "Only time will tell whether any of this speculation is ever proven accurate." The two opposing views -- one of scholars and the other of commercial-media interests -- have surfaced before. For example, earlier this year, the groups clashed over whether the Library of Congress should clarify a provision of the digital copyright act to allow for copying of portions of literary, musical, and video materials. In a final rule issued last month, the Library of Congress sided with commercial interests. And library groups have voiced concerns before about license agreements that limit their use of digital material, notably during debate about the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act. The legislation, passed in Maryland and Virginia, restricts the rights of software buyers. Copyright Office officials repeatedly asked the panelists whether their views about the first-sale doctrine would change if technological innovations could destroy a person's copyright-protected material, once it is electronically transmitted to another person. Panelists were divided on the issue, and Mr. Petersen of Maryland said it raised privacy issues. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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