In recent years debate on IP reform has become increasingly polarised as digital communications transform the way that information is shared, stored and copied. Existing legislation urgently needs to be updated, though the manner in which this is achieved has the potential to nurture or curtail the development of new kinds of creativity and new models of public and private sector value.
“Our IP Manifesto sets out the unique role that the UK national library must play as both a leading voice and an honest broker in the debate that the digital revolution has generated,” said Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library. “As a publisher in its own right, the Library understands the opportunities and threats presented by digital to the publishing industries. As one of the world's great research libraries we are equally mindful of the threat that an overly restrictive, or insufficiently clear, IP framework would pose to future creativity and innovation....
The IP Manifesto's key recommendations include:
Existing limitations and exceptions to copyright law should be extended to encompass unambiguously the digital environment;
Licenses providing access to digital material should not undermine longstanding limitations and exceptions such as ‘fair dealing'
The right to copy material for preservation purposes – a core duty of all national libraries – should be extended to all copyrightable works;
The copyright term for sound recordings should not be extended without empirical evidence of the benefits and due consideration of the needs of society as a whole;
The US model for dealing with ‘orphan works' should be considered for the UK;
The length of copyright term for unpublished works should be brought into line with other terms (ie: life plus 70 years).
“The World Intellectual Property Organisation, the body that frames intellectual property law internationally, is clear that limitations and exceptions such as fair dealing and library privilege are as relevant to the digital environment as they are to the its analogue equivalent,” Lynne Brindley added. “However, out of thirty licensing agreements recently offered to the Library for use of digital material, twenty-eight were found to be more restrictive than the rights existing under current copyright law.”
She concluded: “Our concern is that, if unchecked, this trend will drastically reduce public access, thus significantly undermining the strength and vitality of our creative and educational sectors – with predictable consequences for UK plc.”
From the body of the manifesto:
We are facing up to the challenge of capturing and preserving the nation’s creative output in a fast-moving digital world to ensure it is not lost for future generations. This is forming the nation’s digital memory – for example we have signed an agreement with Microsoft to digitise and make free at the point of access on the web 25,000,000 pages of out of copyright material....
We believe that if [copyright] limitations and exceptions are not clearly extended to the digital environment, knowledge will potentially become simply a commodity to be bought and sold by those that can afford it. This contradicts our existing copyright system, and would undermine in the UK the great economic and educational benefit of the digital age.
We recommend that limitations and exceptions are explicitly extended to the digital environment as is the case in international law....
DRMs are given close to total legal protection within the UK, with no practical processes allowing for legal circumvention in the interests of disabled access, long-term preservation or where the DRM prevents fair-dealing use.
DRMs do not have to expire, and can effectively prevent the work entering into the public domain at the expiry of the copyright period.
Licences, rather than contracts of sale, are emerging as the key transaction method in the digital environment. The majority of these licences deliver lower-level access and copying rights than are available under existing copyright law.
We recommend that contract and DRMs /TPMs are not allowed to undermine the longstanding limitations and exceptions such as fair dealing in UK law....
Posted by
Peter Suber at 9/25/2006 11:20:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
