Issues Index

The Copyright Committee monitors many legislative, political and judicial developments that affect domestic and international copyright law. Throughout the year, the Committee works with AALL's Washington Affairs Office, other library representative organizations, and other concerned groups and citizens to ensure that copyright law properly balances the interests of libraries, librarians, artists, owners and the general public.

For a broader explanation of what we do, please see our About Us page.

While the number of issues we monitor grows with copyright's importance to the U.S. information technology infrastructure, we consider the following issues to be particularly important to our membership.

• Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA): The DMCA (Pub .L. 105-304; 112 Stat. 2860) and its effects on libraries and researchers.
• Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA): The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (Pub. L. 105-298, §§ 102(b) and (d); 112 Stat.2827-2828), the U.S. Supreme Court's Eldred decision, and AALL's Supreme Court amicus curiae brief.
• Fair Use: Information and articles about Section 107 of the U.S. copyright law, particularly its status amidst licensing and digital rights management schemes.
• First Sale: Section 109 of the U.S. copyright law, and its importance to libraries and consumers.
• Databases: The U.S. Supreme Court's Feist decision and industry attempts to gain copyright protection for aggregate data in secure databases.
• Licensing & UCITA: Defines licenses, compares with ownership and the Section 109 "first sale" doctrine, and opposition to the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act ("UCITA").
• Digital Rights Management (DRM): Analyzes digital rights management issues and their effect on fair copyright laws.
• International: International issues, including the Berne Convention, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement.
• Section 108
• Orphan Works
• TEACH Act
• Georgia State University case