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  • From: Lauren Gelman <gelman AT law.stanford.edu>
  • To: eldred-press AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Eldred-press] Archivists Urge Congress to Promote Digital Archives
  • Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 11:29:33 -0700

Title: Archivists Urge Congress to Promote Digital Archives

MEDIA RELEASE
June 20, 2003
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Contact:

Lauren Gelman
gelman AT law.stanford.edu +1 650-724-3358

Brewster Kahle
brewster AT archive.org +1 415-561-6767

Wendy Seltzer
wendy AT eff.org    +1 415-436-9333 ext 125
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Archivists Urge Congress to Promote Digital Archives
Support passage of legislation to enhance public domain

The Presidio, San Francisco - The Internet Archive and other public interest groups sent a letter to Congress today asking for copyright reforms to aid in the maintenance and dissemination of archived knowledge.  The groups endorsed a proposed bill that would release older works to the public domain if copyright owners did not maintain their copyrights.

"The Internet Archive promotes 'universal access to human knowledge.' By releasing underused works to the public domain, this bill could help us reach that goal," said Brewster Kahle, Digital Librarian and co-founder of the Internet Archive. The Archive provides free access to an enormous and wide-ranging collection of Web pages, movies, books, sound recordings and software.  Its Internet Bookmobile has traveled across the country printing public domain books for schoolchildren and communities.

"For better or worse, students these days are looking to the Internet as their library," Kahle said. "Millions of public domain works are being scanned by the Internet Archive and others, and some publishers make copyrighted  books available online.  But there are millions of books caught in the middle-- the 'orphaned books'-- those still under copyright, but have not been in-print for years."

Archivists often deal with works near the end of their copyright terms, unavailable in the market but still valuable sources of knowledge.  A huge amount of knowledge is locked up in out-of-print books with no commercial circulation.  Only 400,000 different books sold even a single copy in the United States in the last year, while the Library of Congress contains 26 million different books.  If even a tiny fraction of the remainder were to circulate more freely, the enhancement of knowledge would be substantial.

Said Kahle, "Trying to clear the rights to scan these works is often very difficult, so they stay homeless and un-owned. These works are not helping the author, the publisher, or any potential readers.  This law can help these orphans find readers that will cherish and learn from them."

The other letter signers were the San Francisco Center for the Book, and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which had helped the Internet Archive and other online archivists navigate copyright laws.

"Digital libraries must make copies in order to archive works, but the copyright law often interferes with that preservation," said Wendy Seltzer, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "This bill strikes a balance: Copyright owners can easily signal their continuing interest in copyright's exclusive rights, while if they do not, their works enter the public domain so others can adopt them.  Books need not languish abandoned for decades because copyright owners who have lost commercial interest cannot be found."

The letter expressed support for new legislation to allow books and other works to enter the public domain so they could be copied, preserved and made available to the world without the threat of liability.  As described at http://eldred.cc, the proposal would require American copyright owners to pay a very low fee (for example, $1) fifty years after a copyrighted work was published. If the owner pays the fee, the copyright will continue for whatever duration Congress sets. If not, it would enter the public domain.


The letter explains that many kinds of works have little commercial circulation but great personal or historical interest.  These include genealogies and family and local histories; outdated scientific works valuable as history of science; and pamphlets and ephemera that collectively document an era.   All of these are currently locked up by copyright for extended terms; many of their authors and copyright owners cannot even be traced.  A maintenance fee and recordation at 50 years would help clear the muddle for archivists seeking to reproduce and circulate such works.

"Protecting the Public Domain is essential for preserving our culture for future generations," said Lauren Gelman, an attorney who is managing the campaign to pass the Public Domain Enhancement Act.  "Organizations like the Internet Archive, which bridge the digital divide by making content available to all for free, must be allowed to continue their important work."

The letter and more information on the Public Domain Enhancement Act is available at: http://eldred.cc
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eldred.cc serves as the focal point for information about the campaign to pass the Public Domain Enhancement Act.  Founded as part of the legal action to overturn the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Enhancement Act, it now houses all the documents from that case, as well as new and up-to-date information about advocacy efforts to promote the Act.  It is maintained and supported by individuals working to reclaim the public domain through litigation and legislation.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is the leading civil liberties organization working to protect rights in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF actively encourages and challenges industry and government to support free _expression_ and privacy online. EFF is a member-supported organization and maintains one of the most linked-to websites in the world at http://www.eff.org/
The Internet Archive is a 501(c)(3) public nonprofit that was founded to build an 'Internet library,' with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. Founded in 1996 and located in the Presidio of San Francisco, the Archive has been receiving data donations from Alexa Internet and others. In late 1999, the organization started to grow to build more well-rounded collections.

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[eldred-press] is a mailing list dedicated to disseminating information about the campaign to reclaim the public domain.   If you wish to be removed, please email press AT eldred.cc and we will do so.




  • [Eldred-press] Archivists Urge Congress to Promote Digital Archives, Lauren Gelman, 06/20/2003

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