Libraries fear new copyright laws will hurt research

Academe, Jul/Aug 2003

Library groups say copyright-protection bills under consideration by legislatures in several states threaten fair-use rights. The bills do so, the groups say, because they duplicate aspects of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), but fail to incorporate the limitations and exceptions in the DMCA that allow libraries to conduct legitimate activities. The state bills are modeled after legislation promoted by the Motion Picture Association of America.

The DMCA prohibits the circumvention of technology that controls access to a copyrighted work and bars the manufacture or distribution of any product that is designed primarily for that purpose. However, the DMCA permits such circumvention for activities such as research into codes that protect copyrighted work and the testing of computer security systems, and it establishes procedures under which the Librarian of Congress can establish additional exceptions. Despite these provisions, the act remains controversial; critics say that the restrictions are overbroad and applied in such a way as to have a chilling effect on academic research, access to information, and the ability of libraries to preserve information resources.

The proposed state legislation exacerbates the problem, library groups say, by broadening the prohibition on circumvention while failing to include the DMCA's exceptions for research.