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Section 108 study group report released

By Siva Vaidhyanathan

The Section 108 study group has finally released their report. See:

• Section 108 Study Group


• Executive Summary of Report


• Full report

For those who are not copyright or library geeks, Section 108 is one of the most important parts of the Copyright Act for libraries.

For those who are having trouble reading the medium-grey on light blue summaries of recommendations in the Executive Summary (what were they thinking?), here's my summary of the summary:

• Museums should be covered by Section 108


• Recommending stricter criteria for eligibility for libraries, including "possessing a public service mission, employing a trained library or archives staff, providing professional services normally associated with libraries and archives, and possessing a collection comprising lawfully acquired and/or licensed materials." Hmm.


• Section 108 should be amended to permit some outsourcing of library & archive exceptions.


• Ease up on the restrictions for replacement copies in 108(c), to include fragile copies, but also some strengthening of requirements -- for instance, libraries are required to look for copies available at a fair price, and the Committee recommends that can include "licensed" copies. Hmm.


• Recommendations about preservation of unpublished works, including limiting this to "unpublished works that have not been publicly disseminated." They include a definition of "not publicly disseminated", but I wonder how tenable these distinctions are going to remain. Also noting that borrowed copies may not be archived by the borrowing institution.


• An exception should be added to permit preservation of "publicly disseminated works" whether published or otherwise publicly disseminated. These are dark archives, so access is specifically restricted: "The library or archives restricts access to the preservation copies to that which is necessary to effectively maintain and preserve the work". A long list of requirements to qualify here; this is really quite bloated IMO.


• An Internet Archive exception "to permit ... capture and reproduce publicly available online content for preservation purposes and to make those copies accessible to users for purposes of private study, scholarship, or research." There should be an opt out, libraries and archives should not interfere with material exploitation, and labeling is required.


• The television news exception should be amended to permit streaming of archives, but not "downloadable copies."


• 108(f)(1) should be amended to clarify that libraries do not have liability for unsupervised use of reproduction equipment, e.g., library users' personal cameras, scanners, etc. And reorganize the darn section logically.

Well, I could have hoped for a lot more, but there are some improvements here. Good luck getting them through Congress, though, especially in an election year. Maybe we'll see some substantive reforms in 2009, but I'm not going to bet the farm on it.

(cross-posted @ derivative work)

Full post as published by SIVACRACY .NET on April 01, 2008 (boomark / email).