Copyright Resources and Current Issues

MAJOR RESEARCH INSTITUTION LEADERS SUPPORT LEGISLATION TO ENSURE PUBLIC ACCESS TO PUBLICLY FUNDED RESEARCH

The act was introduced in April and has received support from higher education:

"The provosts and presidents of 27 major private and public research institutions have voiced their support for the Federal Research Public Access Act in an “Open Letter to the Higher Education Community,” released Friday by the Harvard University Provost."

http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/issues/access/access_supporters/10-0503.shtml

Posted by Lorre Smith at 03:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From the Alliance for Taxpayer Access site:

"In December 2008, Representative Berman, Chairman of the House Subcommittee on the Courts, Intellectual Property and the Internet requested written follow up to Heather Joseph's testimony at the September 11 hearing described below. The Chairman posed four questions, which SPARC addressed in detail in its response [PDF]. "

http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/nih/berman_response_08-1201.pdf

Posted by Lorre Smith at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From SPARC:

NIH UPDATE: Congressional hearing on legislation to overturn the NIH Public Access Policy

On September 9, Representative John Conyers (D-MI), Chairman of the House Committee on Judiciary, introduced legislation that would amend U.S. copyright law, overturn the NIH Public Access Policy, and effectively make it illegal for other U.S. federal agencies to enact similar policies. The proposed legislation is the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act (HR6845).

Posted by Lorre Smith at 01:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After bouncing around for awhile in PK's blog I arrived at this page, which deserves some thought, even if you saw it when it was first released.

In lieu of trying to start from scratch with a new copyright bill, it's a worthwhile proposal, and I'm looking forward to seeing how PK starts the legislative discussions that will be following.

In abbreviated form, The six points are:

1. Fair Use Reform.
2. Limits on Secondary Liability.
3. Protections Against Copyright Abuse.
4. Fair and Accessible Licensing.
5. Orphan Works Reform.
6. Notice of Technological and Contractual Restrictions on Digital Media.

http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1245

Posted by Lorre Smith at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Not such a great headline, but it's about new demands on higher education being suggested to state lawmakers by RIAA and MPAA.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported on the recent (May 7-8) Educause Policy Conference session concerning the attempt to influence state legislatures. Apparently RIAA and MPAA are asking legislatures to consider forcing colleges and universities to police their networks for P2P sharing and even to go so far as to force institutions to install anti-piracy software.

As of this posting Educause hasn't uploaded and of the session materials, but if they're uploaded, they'll show up on the Educause Policy Conference program pages: http://www.educause.edu/Program/14795

http://www.p2pnet.net/story/15884

Posted by Lorre Smith at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Public Knowledge Proposes Six-Point Program for Copyright Reform

Public Knowledge is an organization that always has interesting copyright information on its web site.

Although this list was released in October 2007, I believe it's still relevant and worth examination:

http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1245

Posted by Lorre Smith at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Alliance for Taxpayer Access posted the entire letter to the U.S. Congress regarding the NIH open access policy, signed by 26 Nobel Prize winners.

In case you might wish to use some of the language/ideas when you contact your Senator:
http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/bof.html

The ATA has an update regarding the Senate vote:
http://www.taxpayeraccess.org/nih/2007senatecalltoaction.html

Posted by Lorre Smith at 09:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mr. Bell has devised a very good illustration of the growth and duration of copyright since 1790.

This chart may be used thus wise:
(C) 1999-2002 Tom W. Bell. All rights reserved. Fully attributed noncommercial use of this document permitted if accompanied by this paragraph.

http://www.tomwbell.com/writings/(C)_Term.html

Posted by Lorre Smith at 12:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In general, it's fair to say that the broadcast flag sections of the Senate telecommunications bill can have a very negative effect on the rights outlined in section 107 of the copyright law. For background, these three sites offer explanations:

American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/WOissues/copyrightb/broadcastflag/broadcastflag.htm

Electronic Frontier Foundation
http://www.eff.org/IP/Video/HDTV/

Public Knowledge
http://www.publicknowledge.org/articles/51

Posted by Lorre Smith at 03:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)