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.
- 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.
- Databases: The U.S. Supreme Court's Feist decision and industry attempts to gain copyright protection for aggregate data in secure databases.
- Digital Rights Management (DRM): Analyzes digital rights management issues and their effect on fair copyright laws.
- Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA): The DMCA (Pub .L. 105-304; 112 Stat. 2860) and its effects on libraries and researchers.
- 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.
- Georgia State University case: a recent academic copying lawsuit.
- International: International issues, including the Berne Convention, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement.
- Licensing & UCITA: Defines licenses, compares with ownership and the Section 109 "first sale" doctrine, and opposition to the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act ("UCITA").
- Orphan Works are works for which the current rightsowner cannot be contacted or identified or for which protection may or may not have expired, making their reuse somewhat problematic. The U.S Copyright Office has a proposal to address the issue, but some aspects of the proposal are controversial.
- Section 108 Study Group
: Section 108 of the Copyright
Act includes
exemptions for certain types of copies made by libraries and archives. The Study Group, working under the direction
of the Library of Congress, reported (pdf) on concerns associated
with evolving digital formats and the new challenges introduced
by changing technology and web-based organizations. - TEACH Act: governs the use of protected materials in distance education.