ALAWON v11n0097 (November 27, 2002) URL = http://www.infomotions.com/serials/alawon/alawon-v11n0097.txt ALAWON: American Library Association Washington Office Newsline Volume 11, Number 97 November 27, 2002 In This Issue: Wrap-Up: Status of Library Legislative Issues The November election will finally end after the Louisiana run-off scheduled for mid-December, where Senator Mary Landrieu faces Suzanne Haik Terrell, and a Republican majority will occur in both House and Senate in the 108th Congress. The Senate passed the Homeland Security legislation that the House had previously passed (H.R.5005/H.R. 5710), and the President signed the legislation on November 25. Another Continuing Resolution will carry spending for government at FY2002 levels until January 11, and the beginning of the new Congress. Some resolution of the appropriations stalemate may occur during December so that the funding bills can be rolled into an omnibus appropriations bill and passed in January, before the new budget is suggested by the President for FY2004, and/or another Continuing Resolution may be passed when Congress returns on January 11. Appropriations: It is expected that some compromise will be reached during December or early January that will enable Congress to finalize the remaining eleven appropriations bills for FY2003. Several of the bills have reached the point of conference, but the Labor, HHS Education appropriations bill has only been reported out for the Senate appropriations subcommittee. Differences between the Senate numbers and the President's budget were large, however, government spending will have been allocated at the FY2002 level for four months, therefore saving some funds. Funding will be needed for the new Homeland Security agency as well, so an omnibus appropriations bill may be the route that Congress chooses to take. Museum and Library Services Act of 2002: The Museum and Library Services Act of 2002 of which the Library Services and Technology Act is a part, was not passed during the 107th Congress. Thanks to all for the efforts in 2002 to bring this legislation to completion. In the House, there were 94 bi-partisan sponsors. The bill passed unanimously in the House Subcommittee and full Education and the Workforce Committee. However, it was never voted on by the full House. In the Senate, the legislation had 21 bi-partisan sponsors but was never voted on by the full Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. Efforts will begin again in January to obtain sponsors, bill introduction and early passage. It is hoped that the Museum and Library Services Act can be dealt with quickly at the beginning of the 108th Congress, since both House and Senate Committees will have a large number of pieces of legislation to consider-reauthorization of welfare, Individuals with Disabilities and the Higher Education Act reauthorization. OERI Reauthorization: P.L. 107-279, H.R. 3801--The reauthorization and reorganization of OERI was signed by the President on November 5. The legislation creates an Institute of Education Sciences that replaces and reconstitutes the Office of Educational Resources and Information. It establishes within the Institute a National Center for Education Research that would carry out research on successful state and local education reform activities, including increasing student achievement; impacts and uses of technology in education; and improved methods of mathematics and science teaching for use in elementary and secondary classrooms, including in low-performing schools. There will be at least eight national research and development centers. Also included in the Institute would be a National Center for Education Statistics. A National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance would also be established in the Institute-ERIC Clearinghouses and regional educational laboratories would be under this department as would the National Library of Education. Title III of the legislation authorizes the National Assessment of Educational Progress. COPYRIGHT IN 2002-03 . . . in the 108th U.S. Congress When the 108th Congress opens in January 2003, copyright issues of vital importance to libraries will be high on the agenda. Database Proponents of database protection legislation will continue their efforts to introduce a bill, not only in the House of Representatives, where intensive negotiating sessions have taken place over the past year and a half, but in the Senate as well. ALA insists that any database protection bill must allow "fair use" of databases comparable to that under copyright law and must permit re-use of facts and government-produced data contained in a database. Copyright Protection Legislation Proponents of legislation to permit copyright owners to control access to and downstream use of their products are aggressively pushing for help from Congress. We have been following several bills in the 107th Congress that would undermine the careful balances of the copyright law and we fully expect the bills to be re-introduced in the new Congress "The Berman-Coble Bill"- Introduced in July 2002, H.R. 5211 would permit a copyright owner to use a variety of technological remedies to "prevent infringement" of copyrighted works, including using "self-help" to block alleged illegal file-sharing on peer-to-peer computer networks. S. 2395, the Anti-counterfeiting Amendments of 2002 - The bill, introduced in April by Senator Biden (D-DE), creates liability for trafficking in illicit authentication features-a hologram, watermark, certification, symbol, code or other means of designating that the product to which the authentication feature is affixed is authentic - and could pose major problems for anyone exercising fair use. "The Broadcast Flag Bill" - The Consumer Broadband and Digital Television and Promotion Act (S. 2048), introduced by Sen. Hollings (D-SC), requires digital content, consumer electronics and information technology industries to, in effect, place a broadcast flag - a type of digital rights management - in all "digital media devices" to prevent piracy. Although the Senate bill garnered broad opposition, the House has moved forward with drafting a similar bill. Fair Use Bills On the positive side, in October Reps. Boucher (D-VA) and Doolittle (R-CA) introduced the "Digital Media Consumers' Rights Act" (DMCRA), H.R. 5544, a bill that proposes three key changes to sections of the flawed Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998. This bill reaffirms fair use in the digital environment. Although the bill primarily focuses on the concerns of consumers, it is an important first step in recognizing the rights of copyright users. Libraries strongly support this bill. Also in October, Rep. Lofgren (D-CA) introduced H.R. 5522, the "Digital Choice and Freedom Act of 2002," signaling to Congress that copyright law must be recalibrated to restore consumer and public rights. Libraries will be working with Rep. Lofgren and other members of Congress to achieve this goal. . . . in the courts On the litigation front, we may not see another case going to the Supreme Court in 2003. (ALA filed a "friend of the court" brief for the second year in a row, this time in the Eldred copyright term extension case.) Nevertheless, there are a number of cases brewing in the lower courts that deal directly or indirectly with copyright matters, including digital rights management (technological locks) under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the validity of "shrink-wrap" licenses that attempt to override copyright law. . . . in the states UCITA - the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act - is a proposed state contract law which would permit an end-run around federal copyright law in mass-market licensing agreements. Such licenses are used by virtually all consumers and are the mainstay of most library and business operations. UCITA has not passed anywhere since 2000 (when it passed in Maryland and Virginia), in large part thanks to library advocacy, thus there is considerable pressure on the proponents of UCITA to have some legislative success. We expect that 2003 will be a decisive year for UCITA. . . . in the Copyright Office The U.S. Copyright Office is embarking on a rulemaking, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA), to determine potential exemptions to the Section 1201 prohibition on circumvention of technological measures that control access to copyrighted works. Violators of the anti-circumvention provision are subject to civil and criminal penalties. At the same time, however, the law provides that there can be exemptions from the prohibition for users of "classes of works" who would be "adversely affected by virtue of such prohibition in their ability to make non-infringing uses" of those works. These exemptions were to be designated in a Rule issued by the Copyright Office initially by October 28, 2000, and then every three years thereafter. The Rule issued by the Librarian of Congress in 2000 set out only two "classes of works" subject to the exemption from the prohibition on circumvention: 1. Compilations consisting of lists of Web sites blocked by filtering software applications; and 2. Literary works, including computer programs and databases, protected by access control mechanisms that fail to permit access because of malfunction, damage or obsolescence. A forthcoming issue of ALAWON will cover government information and access issues. ****** ALAWON (ISSN 1069-7799) is a free, irregular publication of the American Library Association Washington Office. All materials subject to copyright by the American Library Association may be reprinted or redistributed for noncommercial purposes with appropriate credits. To subscribe to ALAWON, send the message: subscribe ala-wo [your_firstname] [your_lastname] to listproc@ala.org or go to http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. To unsubscribe to ALAWON, send the message: unsubscribe ala-wo to listproc@ala.org. ALAWON archives at http://www.ala.org/washoff/alawon. ALA Washington Office, 1301 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Suite 403, Washington, D.C. 20004-1701; phone: 202.628.8410 or 800.941.8478 toll-free; fax: 202.628.8419; e-mail: alawash@alawash.org; Web site: http://www.ala.org/washoff. Executive Director: Emily Sheketoff. Office of Government Relations: Lynne Bradley, Director; Camille Bowman, Mary Costabile, Don Essex, Patrice McDermott and Miriam Nisbet. Office for Information Technology Policy: Rick Weingarten, Director; Jennifer Hendrix, Carrie Russell, Claudette Tennant. ALAWON Editor: Bernadette Murphy.