[FYI]: Copyright and Distance Education

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>Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 20:22:46 -0500
>Reply-To: cni-copyright@cni.org
>Sender: owner-cni-copyright@cni.org
>From: Shelly Warwick <swarwick@sprynet.com>
>To: Multiple recipients of list <cni-copyright@cni.org>
>Subject: Copyright and Distance Education
>X-To: "copyright, list" <cni-copyright@cni.org>
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>
>I thought the list might be interested in this article from the
>American Library Association's Washington Office Newsletter:
>
>On March 7, 2001, Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Patrick Leahy
>(D-VT) introduced a bill to update the distance education
>provisions of the Copyright Act to account for advancements in
>digital transmission technologies that support distance
>learning. The bill, S.  487, is entitled the "Technology
>Education and Copyright Harmonization Act" (the "TEACH Act").
>
>The current provisions for distance education, as set out in the
>Copyright Act of 1976 and still in effect, grant an exemption
>from copyright liability for in-class performance, displays of
>certain
>
>copyrighted works and the transmission of those performances to
>outside locations.  These 1976 provisions were written for an
>era when educational communications were dominated by
>face-to-face teaching and one-way, closed-circuit television
>technology.
>
>As instructed in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998,
>the Copyright Office conducted a study on the need for revising
>the copyright law and released a report on its study, "Report on
>Copyright and Digital Distance Education," in May 1999.  The
>report recommended updating of the current copyright law
>exemptions for distance education, but with safeguards to
>respond to proprietor concerns.
>
>The new bill closely tracks the recommendations of the Copyright
>Office, which ALA welcomed as comprehensive and well-balanced.
>The ALA Washington Office will be working closely with the
>Senate Judiciary Committee staff as this bill moves through the
>legislative process.
>
>The WO web site will shortly be updated to provide a link to the
>text of the bill and a summary of its provisions.
>http://www.ala.org/washoff/disted.html
>
>
>I might add that if I remember the Copyright Office's
>recommendations correctly they were only concerned with
>synchronous situations, not asynchronous situations, though the
>latter is the more common practice in distance learning.
>
>
>-- Shelly Warwick swarwick@sprynet.com
>
>"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little
>temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin
>Franklin


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Received on Monday, 12 March 2001 08:58:31 UTC