Chronicle article: Library Groups Say Sweeping State Copyright LawsCould Stifle Teaching and Research

[Ann Okerson <ann.okerson@yale.edu>]

This Chronicle of Higher Education article is worth our time and 
attention...

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              - The text of the article is below -
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  Tuesday, April 1, 2003

  Library Groups Say Sweeping State Copyright Laws Could Stifle
  Teaching and Research

  By ANDREA L. FOSTER
  
  Academic-library groups are denouncing copyright-protection
  bills that legislatures in several states are considering. The
  groups say that the bills, if they became law, could erode
  fair-use rights even more than the Digital Millennium
  Copyright Act, the controversial federal law that makes it
  illegal to bypass technologies designed to protect digital
  works. 
  
  The state bills are based on model legislation pushed by the
  Motion Picture Association of America and cable operators and
  programmers. The legislation would amend state
  telecommunications and cable-security laws to prevent digital
  piracy. But the bills' wording is so sweeping that it could
  become illegal to view or copy radio, television, or Internet
  material without communications providers' express permission,
  says Jonathan Band, a Washington lawyer who represents the
  Association of Research Libraries, the American Association of
  Law Libraries, and the American Library Association. 
  
  Under the model legislation, theft of a communications service
  could be defined as encompassing a broad range of activities,
  including "the receipt, interception, disruption, and
  transmission" of broadcast works, says Mr. Band. 
  
  He helped the library groups draft a letter last week to
  Colorado and Arkansas legislators. The letters warn lawmakers
  that the antitheft bills could stifle encryption research,
  security testing, and reverse engineering, a procedure that
  allows users to take apart and fix defects in software. 
  
  "While digital piracy is a serious problem," the letter to the
  Colorado Senate reads, "some of the proposed amendments will
  undermine the ability of libraries to provide important
  information services." 
  
  Mr. Band says the state bills could also disrupt the ability
  of scholars to assemble databases from Web material. 
  
  The letters were sent to Colorado and Arkansas legislators
  because those states are furthest along in considering the
  antitheft legislation, says Mr. Band. But Florida, Georgia,
  Massachusetts, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas are also
  considering the legislation, according to Edward W. Felten, a
  Princeton University computer scientist who has been tracking
  the state bills, which he calls "super-DMCA" bills. 
  
  Mr. Felten is well known for his unsuccessful lawsuit against
  the recording industry and the U.S. Justice Department, in
  which he argued that the digital-copyright law is
  unconstitutional. That case was dismissed in November 2001
  (The Chronicle, December 14, 2001). 
  
  Mr. Band says bills similar to the model legislation already
  have been signed into law in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware,
  Illinois, and Michigan. He says it's unclear whether the
  federal digital-copyright law trumps related state laws, which
  might make them less of a worry. 
  
  Vans Stevenson, the motion-picture group's senior vice
  president for state legislative affairs, accuses the library
  groups of misunderstanding state antitheft legislation. 
  
  "People are seeing demons where there are none," he says,
  adding that the state laws are intended to thwart theft, not
  legitimate academic research. 
  
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Copyright 2003 by The Chronicle of Higher Education