Towards a balanced Information Society
At present, national legislators are adjusting their copyright law to provide adequate protection to copyright owners for the electronic use of their works. Moreover, the European Commission has recently adopted a proposal for a Directive on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the Information Society. This draft directive is at the moment under discussion at the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.
Libraries, archives and museums recognise the need for sufficient copyright protection for copyright owners in a digital environment. However, new legislation should also provide for affordable access to information. Unfortunately, the tendency is to leave the future of access to information to self-regulatory licensing mechanisms. In an environment where information can be monopolised, citizens, libraries, archives and museums could be left in a nearly impossible negotiation position.
Copyright is a matter of democracy. There is a societal need to maintain a balance between the rights of authors and the public interests in particular for education, research and access to information. This was reflected in the Berne Convention of 1886 and the recognition of this need was confirmed by 157 nations in the Preamble of the recently adopted WIPO Copyright Treaty.
Libraries, archives and museums would like to call upon the legislator to make sure that the nightmare future for the Information Society where nothing can be looked at, read, used or copied without permission or additional payments, is not becoming a reality. Citizens, libraries, archives and museums need the government to safeguard access and the use of digital information by statutory provisions. This is needed more than ever before.
A sufficient level of access and affordable use of copyrighted information in a digital environment would be safeguarded when legislators ensure the following fair practices by statutory provisions:
- the viewing, browsing and copying of digital material for private, educational and research purposes in libraries, archives and museums;
- the making of a digital copy for archival and preservation purposes by libraries, archives and museums;
- the copying of a limited number of pages on paper of a digital work by libraries, archives and museums for their users;
- the making of a copy on audio, visual or audio-visual recording media made by private individuals for personal use and for non-commercial ends.
These provisions should apply to all types of libraries, not only to public libraries. The same applies for archives and museums.
Furthermore, the legislator should ensure that temporary copies made during a technical process shall be exempted from copyright protection.
Moreover, the EU Directive on the legal protection of databases contains a narrow interpretation of the existing copyright exception of copying for education and research purposes. In a digital environment, this exception is reduced to the copying for the sole purpose of illustration for teaching or scientific research. Libraries, archives and museums would like to call upon the national legislator to interpret this exception as widely as possible to cover a wider range of educational and research purposes. The opportunity for this is given under Art. 6 (2) (d) of this database directive.
In the new draft Directive on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the Information Society the display on a screen of a work is protected by the communication to the public right. This right was adopted in the WIPO Copyright Treaty during the WIPO Diplomatic Conference in December 1996. It has been suggested by some copyright owners that display on a screen should be seen as an act of lending and should come under the lending right schemes. Libraries, archives and museums believe that display on a screen is not an act of lending. Lending right should be restricted to tangible copies, like the distribution right. The communication to the public right could be the preferred option as long as legislators provide for adequate exceptions as this right will be the corner stone of access to digital information.
In the WIPO Copyright Treaty 1996 and in the new draft Directive on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the Information Society, provisions are included for the legal protection of anti-copying and rights management systems. There is concern amongst the library, archive and museum communities on the impact of the electronic copyright management systems on the enforceability of the exceptions under copyright and related rights. The circumvention of technical measures should be allowed for activities authorised by the copyright owners or permitted by law. Furthermore the privacy of citizens should be safeguarded.
Libraries, archives and museums urge the national legislator to ensure that the new copyright initiatives are balanced so that citizens can fully benefit from the Information Society and that democratic values are preserved. Libraries, archives and museums believe that all citizens have
a right to expect that they can view and browse electronic material in their libraries, archives and museums, just as freely as they can read a book.
ECUP, 19 December 1997