Curious that California’s AB 609 (public health open access mandate) has a sunset provision. Still, yaay, mostly.
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB609 …







Curious that California’s AB 609 (public health open access mandate) has a sunset provision. Still, yaay, mostly.
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201320140AB609 …
Tennessee legislation introduced for pre-1972 sound recordings (Jan. 31, 2014) – HB 2187 / SB 2187 was introduced in Tennessee to provide state-level copyright protection for pre-1972 sound recordings, which are not copyrighted under US federal law. A smattering of states clearly apply copyright-like protections for pre-1972 sound recordings, but the legal status is currently a patchwork. The Copyright Office has recommended that pre-1972 sound recordings be brought under federal copyright law, and Congress may consider that recommendation in its ongoing review of copyright law.
share:You may have heard that Congress is holding copyright hearings. This is all part of a planned “comprehensive” review of copyright, likely to take place over several years, with the intent of eventually passing “the Next Great Copyright Act”.
So far all the hearings are happening in the House of Representatives, and none scheduled in the Senate. Specifically, the House Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property & the Internet, (see Wikipedia) has held a few hearings, and has scheduled more.
This week’s hearing is on fair use, obviously of key interest to libraries and educators. Upcoming hearings will be on first sale (digital and print); Section 108 & orphan works; and the role of the Copyright Office. I think you can see that this is a very important set of hearings for libraries! So we’re very fortunate that ARL and ALA’s Washington Office, along with other allies (Public Knowledge, the PIJIP program, the Samuelson Clinic), are on top of the issue, working to develop proposed witnesses, prepping testimony, keeping us all up to date, and sending in written testimony from the “Library Copyright Alliance” in addition to witness testimony.
The way the hearing itself works is that a general profile of witnesses is asked for (“Give me someone from libraries, someone from international, and someone from music.”), and various organizations submit proposed lists of witnesses. Committee members (or their aides) select specific witnesses, who then submit a prepared statement for their testimony. Typically at the hearing the witnesses read their statements, and then are questioned.
For this week’s hearing on fair use, we have two strong allies of fair use, and three voices that are generally much more mixed or actively not allies of fair use.
The library associations ARL, ALA, and ACRL have also submitted a joint statement as the “Library Copyright Alliance”, which is linked below. I recommend it! It’s one of the few organizations right now representing educational perspectives in copyright.
Testimony and statements of particular interest