Mass Digitization and Copyright Law, Policy and Practice
by Georgia K. Harper, I.P. Scholar
In the fall of 2007 I took a class at the
University of Texas on Internet research
methods. I decided to study whether legal
blogging could be scholarship. Among other
work on the subject, I documented my own
effort to "blog the first draft" of a legal
research article by posting each section of
the article, as I wrote it, on a blog with
the hope of soliciting comments and
suggestions. What you are about to read is
not the result of the blogging research study (available on the Copyright
Crash Course site), but rather, the legal article that I began,
section by section, on the blog. While I did
indeed learn a lot about blogs, blogging and
scholarship, I suppose my deeper interest in
copyright law and mass digitization projects
encouraged me to refine the paper, rather
than the blogging research project. I was
fortunate to have the opportunity to present
the paper in May at the CIP's Annual
Copyright Symposium, and continue to receive
invitations to talk on this important subject
both here and abroad!
The trends that you will read about in the
paper are continuing this summer: the 2008
Orphan Works bills introduced in the House
and Senate have gone nowhere as legislative
stalemate continues to rule; one can now
watch nearly every television show on the
Internet; OCLC has launched its Copyright
Registry to gather and display in one place
evidence about copyright status and
ownership; the Center for Social Media rolled
out another set of Best Practices to
reinvigorate the stagnant fair use of
legislative and executive-backed "stakeholder
negotiations;" and more and more
digitization projects make their appearances
on the Web, adding to the pressure that
locked-down content providers must feel to
free up access to and use of their materials
if they wish to compete for our limited time
and attention.
No copyright story is ever over, and this one
will continue to evolve and change. I hope
you enjoy reading about my take on the state
of affairs related to mass digitization
projects and copyright law in summer, 2008.
Read Georgia's full paper
here...
 Georgia K.
Harper
is
the Scholarly
Communications
Advisor for the University of Texas at Austin
Libraries,
where she focuses on issues of digital
access. She
was Senior Attorney and manager of the
Intellectual
Property Section of the Office of General
Counsel for
the University of Texas System until August
2006,
where she specialized in copyright law. Ms.
Harper is
also the 2006-2008 IP Scholar at the Center for
Intellectual Property.
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HEA Reauthorization Set to Become Law with Modified File Sharing Provisions
Up on the Hill with Kenneth Salomon & Matthew Johnson
President Bush on August 14 signed into law
the Higher Education Opportunity Act (the
HEOA), culminating a multiple year process of
reauthorizing the Higher Education Act of
1965. The HEOA contains a controversial
provision (Section 493) to address illegal
peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing on university
campuses The text of the new law is
available here
(from the GPO).
....
The HEOA imposes two significant
responsibilities on institutions with the
intent to reduce illegal file sharing on
campus Internet networks. First,
institutions are required to "certify" that
they have developed technology-based plans to
"combat the unauthorized distribution of
copyright material." Second, they are
required to "offer alternatives" to illegal
file sharing or P2P distributions "to the
extent practicable." Pages 115-117 of the
Conference Committee report that released
with HR 4137 clarifies what Congress intended
by these requirements. The report is
available here
(from the U.S. Senate). MPAA plans to send
information booklets to
universities suggesting ways to comply with
the bill's requirements. More significantly,
Educause, ACE, NASULGC and AAU have published
a memorandum
summarizing the requirements of the P2P
provisions, what will happen next and what
institutions should be doing now.
Read the full update on the
HEOA and its implications for higher
education...
 Attorney
Kenneth
Salomon is a Member of Dow Lohnes and
head of the firm's Government Relations
Practice Group. He also serves as the
Chairman of Dow Lohnes Government Strategies
LLC. Mr.
Salomon's decades of
practice have focused on such areas as
communications, government relations and
legislation, intellectual property, mass
media, and post-secondary education.
Matthew Johnson was a 2008 Summer
Associate with Dow Lohnes, PLLC, and is a
third year law student at The George
Washington University Law School.
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Copyright Monopoly: (Re-)Playing the innovation game
A Fast-Action Replay of the 2008 Symposium, By Jack Boeve
Since 2001, the Center for Intellectual
Property has convened librarians, educators,
and those from many other disciplines
concerned with the legal and ethical use of
copyrighted information in the arena of
higher education for an annual symposium.
The Eighth Annual Symposium on Intellectual
Property, held May 28-30, 2008, continued the
tradition of offering current thinking and
perspectives on contemporary copyright issues
from a spectrum of leaders in the field,
engaging discussions on a range of topics,
and resources to equip information
professionals for their responsibilities on
campuses and in their organizations.
The 2008 symposium was special because the
program was presented in three venues this
year: face-to-face at UMUC, online live to
our nationwide webcast audience, and in-world
in Second LifeŽ!  In keeping with the
innovation theme of this year's program, CIP
was pleased and excited to experiment with an
educational program in SL's creative, dynamic
virtual world.
Avatars from across the U.S.
and abroad gathered in the New Media
Consortium's (NMC) Conference Center in SL
and participated in the keynote and panelist
sessions, as well as in four roundtable
discussions. Participants in both Second
LifeŽ and the face-to-face program enjoyed
and benefited from the multiple connections
between the conference centers in the two
worlds made possible by the technological
bridge, thanks to the outstanding cooperative
services of NMC and UMUC's own Laddie
Odom, who managed many of the complexities of
streaming the program into SL. 
Read and view more from the
symposium...
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2008-2009 Online Workshops: Registration Now Open!
Since 1999, the CIP has offered the
Intellectual Property in Academia online
workshops, a series of asynchronous
educational programs designed
to meet the needs of information
professionals, librarians, faculty,
university counsel, and instructional
designers.The topics and workshop moderators for the
2008-2009 series will provide participants
with an understanding of select intellectual
property issues facing higher education in
today's
digital environment of rapid and volatile
change.One indicator of change and of the needs in
higher education is that the Center is
offering an expanded slate of workshops this
year to assist individuals and institutions
to manage the changes brought on by our
digital environment.The moderators for this series include
copyright scholars and practitioners who have
studied the laws, issues, and trends and who
are able to ask thoughtful questions
alongside of providing candid perspectives
and helpful insights.Be sure to visit the workshop website for
all the details, including full descriptions
and goals, moderator bios, and special
package pricing!
Fall 2008
This
workshop will explore how an
integrated approach to the various methods
our campuses use to provide access to digital
educational course materials can facilitate
institutional compliance with copyright
law.
Get
the scoop from a copyright expert and
co-chair of the Section 108 Study Group on
the Study Group's 2008 report and
recommendations on exceptions to copyright
law intended to address the balance between
the rights of creators and copyright owners
and the needs of libraries, archives, and
museums as they seek to fulfill their
missions in the digital environment.
Spring 2009
Are
you interested in using copyrighted works
whose owners cannot be located? Join attorney
and public interest advocate Gigi Sohn to
learn more about the need for orphan works
legislation, the history and background of
these types of copyrighted works, and a
discussion of current legislation, with its
pros and cons, that aims to resolve the
complex issues involved in orphan
works.
Do the hundreds of different
vendor licenses that accompany your library's
electronic journals and database resources
leave you mystified and occasionally
paralyzed with confusion? Are you unsure of
your rights and responsibilities, the meaning
and appropriateness of the license terms? In
this online workshop you will learn the
basics of licensing law, ways to manage
licenses, and desirable and undesirable
license terms.
Join attorney Steve McDonald as
he helps you explore the often-complex
intersection between the worlds of copyright
policy and academia. McDonald will help you
evaluate an institution's needs and copyright
policies and help answer some of the many
questions that flow from the process of
policy development within the arena of higher
education.
In this workshop, academic
integrity practitioner and author Tricia
Bertram Gallant will help participants
explore student leanings toward
cheating--what they do, how often they do it,
and why they do it--as well as develop
pedagogical and developmental strategies for
responding and preventing student behaviors
that undermine the teaching and learning
environment.
Summer 2009
 
Two pioneering academics who
changed industry practice with best-practices
codes for fair use explain both the law and
the importance of these new codes as tools
for practitioners. They describe how makers
of cultural material are designing and
employing codes that help them use the rights
they have. They explain the historical and
legal justifications for fair use,
troubleshoot interpretations and explore how
this model could work in your community.
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Executive Director's Corner
Moving Forward
The Center for Intellectual Property had a
great year in 2008. Our workshops and
symposium were incredibly successful.
Copyright and academic integrity experts
taught a variety of professional development
courses and participants gave them rave
reviews. For those of you who were not able
to attend the 2008 Copyright Symposium, I
encourage you to visit the Symposium Archives.
As the Center for Intellectual Property
prepares for a new season, we wanted to share
with you several exciting developments that
will certainly advance the Center in future
years. In the fall of 2007, the Center for
Intellectual Property convened a Board of
Advisors that is comprised of outstanding
leaders in the library, law, information
technology, higher education and publishing
communities. We are honored to work with
the following members of the CIP Board of
Advisors:
- Tracey L. Armstrong, President and CEO,
Copyright Clearance Center
- Marie A. Cini, Vice Provost and Dean,
School of Undergraduate Studies, UMUC
- Micheal S. Frank, Vice Provost and Dean,
Graduate School of Management and Technology,
UMUC
- Georgia K. Harper, CIP IP Scholar;
Scholarly Communications Advisor, University
of Texas, Austin
- William E. Kirwan, Chancellor, University
System of Maryland
- Laurence Roth, Vice President,
Marketing/Business Development, Cinea,
Inc.
- Kenneth D. Salomon, Member, Dow Lohnes,
PLLC
- Emily Sheketoff, Associate Executive
Director, American Library Association
- Greg von Lehmen, Senior Vice Provost for
Academic Affairs, UMUC
- Steven L. Worona, Director, Policy and
Networking Programs EDUCAUSE
The CIP Board of Advisors helped spearhead
the development of a strategic planning
process. And we would like to share some of
the new directions and programming
developments that are part of this strategic
initiative.
The CIP plans to increase the types of
collaborations and partnerships during this
new season. Although the CIP will maintain
the IP Scholar collaboration, we hope to
expand that collaboration to include not only
one person, but possibly groups of scholars
that can assist CIP's constituents.
The CIP is investigating becoming a
member-based organization. Although all
aspects of this are not final, the CIP
anticipates unveiling a new structure and new
services in 2009.
The CIP is expanding the type and number of
its educational offerings. For example, this
year, we will offer seven (7) online
workshops. This summer, we will provide an
online brown bag series utilizing platforms
like Second Life and/or Wimba to provide both
synchronous and asynchronous professional
development programming. The list of new
online workshops is detailed in this
Newsletter. I encourage you to sign-up
for them.
Probably the biggest shift in our programming
is related to the CIP symposium. In order to
enhance the CIP symposium, the symposium will
be offered on a biannual basis. The
additional time in the development of the
symposium will add to the depth, breadth and
overall quality of the symposium for attendees.
Please keep watching the CIP website in the
coming months and review this Newsletter in
Winter/Spring for more information about
additional offerings and developments with
CIP's programming and structure.
We hope to be the premier copyright resource
center in higher education. Thanks for your
continued support.
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Collectanea Blog...Rolling Along
Collected Perspectives on Copyright
Nearly 30,000 times each month, someone is
visiting and reading the posts on
Collectanea. (If you are one of them, we
say "Thanks!") CIP began Collectanea about
18 months ago, and we have been pleased with
its growth.
One testimony to Collectanea's identity as
being a place for "collected perspectives on
copyright" is that our guest bloggers thus
far have
included: Kenny Crews, Laura Gasaway, Steve
McDonald, Peg O'Donnell, Carlos Ovalle, Tobe
Liebert, and Peggy Hoon.
All the sharing of perspectives has
not been simply uni-directional, though, as
posts by our bloggers have garnered reader
comments from attorneys, real estate agents,
educators, and other private citizens. The
blog has had some spirited debate between
Georgia and the director of a major
university press. And copyright law
specialist William Patry, a renowned and
respected blogger himself on things
copyright, even stopped by to respond to one
of Georgia's
postings.
Just a few of the topics blogged over the
past several months have included:
As an example of the ranging issues our
bloggers have covered, just one post from
Georgia Harper (A
new era in defining and applying fair use
norms, 7/21/08)
touched on the following topics: CONFU, fair
use, copyright, guidelines for educational
use, best practices for documentary film
making and for fair use in online video,
media literacy, the TEACH Act, and even
democracy and torture. (Who would have thought!)
If you do not do so already, you may want to:
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Collected Standards of Practice in Copyright Management
Proceedings from the 2008 CIP Symposium Roundtable Discussions
The 2008 CIP Symposium agenda included
opportunities for participants to engage in
highly interactive roundtable discussions
focused on possible strategies and best
practices for handling copyright issues at
their institutions and organizations.
Topics of discussion were:
- Avoiding Income & Luxury Taxes: Best Practices for Handling Copyright Issues When Creating Content for Your University or Library
- University Innovation & Copyright: How to
Become an Effective Advocate and Move Your
Community from Baltic Avenue to Park Place
- Creating a Community Chest: Best
Practices for
Expanding the Public Domain at Your
Institution
- Best Practices that Guide Mass Digitization
Projects or the Development of Institutional
Repositories
The result of those roundtable sessions is a
document that contains the contributions from
all who participated, both in the real and
the virtual worlds. Collected
Standards of Practice for Copyright
Management is available for download
in the CIP
symposium archives. We hope you will find
the document to be useful for your further
thought and practice.
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