COPYCENSE

The Copyright Office of the Library of Congress will be holding public hearings on the possible exemptions to the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. In accordance with the Copyright Act, as amended by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Office is conducting its triennial rulemaking proceeding to determine whether there are particular “classes of works” as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses if they are prohibited from circumventing such technological measures.

DATES

Public hearings will be held in Palo Alto, California on Thursday, March 23, 2006, and Friday, March 24, 2006. The Palo Alto hearings will be held in the Moot Court Room (Room 80) of the Stanford Law School, Crown Quadrangle, Palo Alto, CA.

Public hearings will also be held in Washington, DC on Wednesday, March 29, 2006; Friday, March 31, 2006; Monday, April 3, 2006; and Tuesday, April 4, 2006; all beginning at 9:30 AM. The Washington, DC round of public hearings will be held in the Mumford, Room, LM-649, of the James Madison Building of the Library of Congress, 101 Independence Ave, SE., Washington, DC.

Requests to testify must be received by 5 p.m. E.S.T. on Friday March 10, 2006. Requests to testify may be submitted through the request form available at

http://www.copyright.gov/1201/index.html.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Rob Kasunic, Principal Legal Advisor, Office of the General Counsel, Copyright GC/I&R, PO Box 70400, Washington, DC 20024-0400. Telephone (202) 707-8380; fax (202) 707- 8366.

U.S. Copyright Office. Notice of Public Hearings: Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies. Federal Register. (Volume 71, Number 36) Feb. 23, 2006.

See also:

U.S. Copyright Office. Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works. No date.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“The subject of an ongoing series of discussions between the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), broadcasters, and representatives from a variety of nations, the WIPO Broadcast Treaty carries the promise of standardizing how certain types of intellectual property are treated around the world. It also presents the ominous threat of granting a powerful 50-year right of control to anyone who first broadcasts audio or video content.

“A video featuring comments on the WIPO treaty by U.S. Copyright Office head Marybeth Peters sheds some light on the fact that, although U.S. broadcasters would love to see the additional control granted to them, at least some people in the government are not necessarily in agreement on the issue, and the topic is not yet decided.

“If you’ve ever posted any kind of sound and video on the Internet, you could be affected by this provision of the Broadcast Treaty, should it be adopted.”

ArsTechnica. Broadcast Treaty Has Potential to Grant Unwarranted “Protections.” Feb. 22, 2006.

See also:

Electronic Frontier Foundation. WIPO Broadcasting Treaty. No date.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

“It is no secret that the entertainment oligopolists are not happy about space-shifting and format-shifting. But surely ripping your own CDs to your own iPod passes muster, right? In fact, didn’t they admit as much in front of the Supreme Court during the MGM v. Grokster argument last year?

“Apparently not.”

EFF Deep Links. RIAA Says Ripping CDs to Your iPod is NOT Fair Use. Feb. 15, 2006.

See also:

U.S. Copyright Office. Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies — Joint Reply of Association of American Publishers, et al. (.pdf, 550 KB) Feb. 2, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

The Section 108 Study Group of the Library of Congress seeks comment on certain issues relating to the exceptions and limitations applicable to libraries and archives under section 108 of the Copyright Act, and announces public roundtable discussions. The Federal Register notice (1) requests written comments from all interested parties on the specific issues identified in the notice, and (2) announces public roundtable discussions regarding certain of those issues, as described in the notice. The issues covered in the notice relate primarily to eligibility for the section 108 exceptions and copies made for purposes of preservation and replacement.

Roundtable Discussions: The first public roundtable will be held in Los Angeles, California on Wednesday, March 8, 2006, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. P.S.T. An additional roundtable will be held in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, March 16, 2006 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. E.S.T. Requests to participate in either roundtable must be received by the Section 108 Study Group by 5:00 p.m. E.S.T. on Feb. 24, 2006.

Written Comments: Interested parties may submit written comments on any of the topics discussed in the Federal Register notice after 8:30 a.m. E.S.T. on March 17, 2006, and on or before 5:00 p.m. E.S.T. on April 17, 2006.

U.S. Copyright Office. Section 108 Study Group: Information for the March 2006 Public Roundtables and Request for Written Comments. (.pdf, 127 KB) Feb. 10, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

This Report addresses the issue of “orphan works,” a term used to describe the situation where the owner of a copyrighted work cannot be identified and located by someone who wishes to make use of the work in a manner that requires permission of the copyright owner. Even where the user has made a reasonably diligent effort to find the owner, if the owner is not found, the user faces uncertainty – she cannot determine whether or under what conditions the owner would permit use. … Concerns have been raised that in such a situation, a productive and beneficial use of the work is forestalled – not because the copyright owner has asserted his exclusive rights in the work, or because the user and owner cannot agree on the terms of a license – but merely because the user cannot locate the owner. Many users of copyrighted works have indicated that the risk of liability for copyright infringement, however remote, is enough to prompt them not to make use of the work. Such an outcome is not in the public interest, particularly where the copyright owner is not locatable because he no longer exists or otherwise does not care to restrain the use of his work.

The Copyright Office has long shared these concerns, and … was pleased that on January 5, 2005 Senators Orrin Hatch and Patrick Leahy asked the Register of Copyrights to study the orphan works issue in detail, and to provide a report with her recommendations. Also in January 2005, Representatives Lamar Smith and Howard Berman expressed interest in the issue and supported the undertaking of this study.

Our conclusions are:

• The orphan works problem is real.
• The orphan works problem is elusive to quantify and describe comprehensively.
• Some orphan works situations may be addressed by existing copyright law, but many are not.
• Legislation is necessary to provide a meaningful solution to the orphan works problem as we know it today.

We recommend that the orphan works issue be addressed by an amendment to the Copyright Act’s remedies section. The specific language we recommend is provided at the end of this Report.

U.S. Copyright Office. Report on Orphan Works. January 2006.

Updates:

The Patry Copyright Blog. Copyright Office Orphan Works Report. Feb. 6, 2006.

Public Knowledge. The Copyright Office’s way to Solve Orphan Works. Feb. 1, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

A committee appointed by the Library of Congress will hold two public roundtables in March 2006—in Los Angeles and in Washington, D.C.— to gather insights and opinions on how to revise copyright exceptions for libraries and archives (Section 108 of the Copyright Act).

The committee consists of independent experts from the commercial and not-for profit sectors. The roundtables, which are free and open to the public, will be held Wednesday, March 8, in Los Angeles and on Thursday, March 16, in Washington, D.C.

The committee, known as the Section 108 Study Group, convened in April 2005 under the sponsorship of the Library of Congress and the U.S. Copyright Office to re-examine the exceptions and limitations applicable to libraries and archives under the Copyright Act, specifically in light of the changes produced by the widespread use of digital technologies since the last significant study in 1988.

U.S. Copyright Office. Study Group to Host Public Roundtables in March 2006 on Copyright Exceptions for Libraries and Archives. (Press Release) Jan 17, 2006.

Editors’ Note: CopyCense executive editor K. Matthew Dames has written about Section 108 recently. Dames’ article, “Copyright Clearances: Library Copying in the Digital Age,” was published in the July/August 2005 edition of Online magazine and is available from the Information Today, Inc. archives. CopyCense will publish an updated version of this article on Tuesday, January 31.

Update:

The Wired Campus Blog. Library Group Argues Before Congress. January 24, 2006.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.

The Copyright Office is conducting a rulemaking proceeding mandated by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which provides that the Librarian of Congress may exempt certain classes of works from the prohibition against circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. The purpose of this rulemaking proceeding is to determine whether there are particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention of measures that protect access.

As a part of the rulemaking, interested parties were invited to submit comments in November 2005. These comments are available for viewing from our comments page.

The Copyright Office will be accepting reply comments from January 4, 2006, until 5:00 P.M. EST on February 2, 2006. Persons who oppose or support any exemptions proposed in the initial comments now have the opportunity to respond to the proposals made in the initial comments and to provide factual information and/or legal argument addressing whether a proposed exemption should be adopted. Since the reply comments are intended to be responsive to the initial comments, reply commenters must identify what proposed class they are responding to, whether in opposition, support, amplification or correction.

As with initial comments, reply comments should first identify the proposed class, provide a summary of the argument, and then provide the factual and/or legal support for their argument. This format of class/summary/facts and/or legal argument should be repeated for each reply to a particular class of work proposed.

Commenters are strongly encouraged to submit comments well in advance of the deadline to allow sufficient time to correct any format defects and resubmit comments before the deadline.

U.S. Copyright Office. Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works. Jan. 5, 2006.

See also:

U.S. Copyright Office. Comments on Jonathan Band on Behalf of the Library Copyright Alliance and Music Library Association. (.pdf, 69 KB) Dec. 1, 2005.

U.S. Copyright Office. Comments of Brewster Kahle on Behalf of the Internet Archive. (.pdf, 537 KB) Dec. 1, 2005.

CopyCense™: K. Matthew Dames on the intersection of business, law and technology. A business venture of Seso Digital LLC.