[Infowarrior] - Library of Congress on DMCA, Copyright Law Troubles

[Richard Forno]

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/07/library-congress-dmca-copyright-law-troubles

July 17th, 2008
Library of Congress on DMCA, Copyright Law Troubles
Posted by Hugh D'Andrade

The chorus of voices criticizing the Digital Millenium Copyright Act  
(DMCA) has just gotten a bit louder with the addition of a new and  
authoritative voice: The Library of Congress. In a new report, jointly  
released with the U.K.'s Joint Information Systems Committee,  
Australia's Open Access to Knowledge (OAK) Law Project, and the  
Netherlands' SURFfoundation, the Library of Congress' National Digital  
Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program points out that  
the work of preserving, documenting and archiving the nation's  
intellectual output is made unnecessarily difficult by antiquated  
copyright law exceptions and limitations, and TPM (technological  
protection measure) laws designed to restrict the making of digital  
copies.

ArsTechnica has a review of the report, citing the many absurd  
paradoxes of trying to make archival copies in a legal environment  
that views copying as a suspicious and possibly illegal act. The DMCA,  
for example, bans not just the act of circumventing DRM copy  
restrictions, but also the sale or trafficking in the software or  
tools that enable circumvention. And while the Librarian of Congress  
is authorized to craft exemptions under appropriate circumstances to  
the DMCA's ban on circumvention, there wouldn't be much of a market  
for tools to accomplish that circumvention, since only those who fall  
within an exemption could use them. So even if libraries were granted  
an exemption from the ban on circumvention for the purposes of digital  
archiving, they might well be unable to obtain the tools to do so —  
because they would still generally be illegal.

The report was released the day before a WIPO seminar on Digital  
Preservation and Copyright issues. In the international context, it is  
worth noting that some countries have adopted a more forward-looking  
approach to laws regulating technological protection measures than the  
inflexible DMCA. One example is New Zealand's recently revised  
Copyright Law (PDF), which permits libraries and archives to access  
circumvention tools to circumvent TPMs on behalf of end users if the  
TPMs interfere with non-copyright infringing uses.

ArsTechnica cites these other examples:

     ...One big issue is the exemption for published works in a  
library's collection; these can also be copied three times, but only  
to "replace a work in their collections that is damaged,  
deteriorating, lost or stolen or whose format has become obsolete." In  
other words, librarians can't backup or archive such works until  
destruction is well under way.

     In addition, "obsolete" doesn't mean what you or I might mean by  
the term; the Library notes that LPs still can't be copied into  
digital archives because record players remain available on the open  
market and are therefore not "obsolete."

Check out the ArsTechnica article, and the new report is here (PDF). http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/partners/resources/pubs/wipo_digital_preservation_final_report2008.pdf