[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

SAA challenges copyright term extension



One of the things that a national archival organization can do is speak on national issues of archival policy.  We have seen this in action recently with Steve Hensen's excellent essay in the Washington Post that argued eloquently in support of public access to the records of government.  The Society of American Archivists recently spoke out on another important issue: the copyright status of unpublished manuscripts. 

The SAA has joined with a coalition of information organizations, including the Association of Research Libraries, the American Library Association, the Digitial Futures Coalition, and others, in the submission of an amicus brief to the Supreme Court requesting that the Court hear a challenge to the constitutionality of copyright term extension.  In 1998 Congress passed the Copyright Term Extension Act increasing the duration of copyright from life of the author plus fifty years to life of the author plus seventy years.  The effect was to stop for twenty years the addition of any published work to the public domain.  As Roy Rosenzweig noted in a recent article in the Journal of American History, ?[f]or historians, copyright protection has redlined... much twentieth-century history...?  In response, a group of publishers and preservationists filed suit challenging the constitutionality of copyright term extension.  The suit, Eldred v. Ashcroft, argues that "perpetual copyright on the installment plan" is in direct violation of the constitutional stipulation that the monopoly rights granted by copyright be for a limited term.  The suit lost in the Federal Appeals court, and recently the plaintiffs asked the Supreme Court to rule on the issue.

The brief submitted by the SAA and others asking that the Court hear the case draws heavily on the problems archivists and historians encounter when faced with excessive copyright terms.  The brief notes the harm that is done to scholarship when material with unknown or uncertain copyright status does not enter the public domain in a timely fashion.  Effort must be spent instead investigating the copyright status of works.  In some cases the inability to identify copyright ownership has meant that some scholarship has not been published.  While the brief itself was written by students in a legal clinic at American University, much of the information in the brief and many of the examples were provided the SAA Council's Working Group on Intellectual Property. 

A copy of the amicus brief can be found at <http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/eldredvashcroft/cert/library-amicus.pdf>; more information on the suit is available at <http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/eldredvashcroft/>.

I would encourage all members of the ARCHIVES list who care about the national archival enterprise and who are not yet members of the SAA to join.  The SAA can only speak out when it has the active voluntary and financial support of an engaged membership.  Membership information is available at the SAA website <http://www.archivists.org>.


---------------------------------------------------------------
Peter B. Hirtle
Vice President/President-elect
Society of American Archivists
Co-Director                                pbh6@cornell.edu
Cornell Institute for Digital Collections     607/255-4033 (ph)
2B Kroch Library                                   607/255-9524 (fax)
Cornell University                <http://www.archivists.org/>
Ithaca, NY  14853
----------------------------------------------------------------
A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List! To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu In body of message: SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname *or*: UNSUB ARCHIVES To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html Problems? Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt