ALIA copyright service: the digital agenda

Letter to parliamentarians

Stating the Association's position on the Digital Agenda Bill. Copies were sent to everyone on our lobbying list of parliamentarians...

31 March 2000

The Honourable Daryl Williams
Attorney-General
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

Dear Attorney-General

The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) welcomes the release of the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs advisory report on the Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Bill 1999. ALIA is the professional association for the library and information sector which represents 1500 institutional members, 6500 personal members and the interests of ten million library users.

This letter explains the Association's position on various provisions of the Digital Agenda Bill and certain important recommendations made by the committee's advisory report. The Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) is a member of the Australian Digital Alliance (ADA) and the Australian Libraries Copyright Committee (ALCC). The ALCC and ADA have responded to the committee's Report on the Digital Agenda Bill and this response has been sent to the Attorney-General's Department and the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. ALIA can provide you with a copy of this response if required.

The Association is seeking your support for the library position on the digital agenda reforms to ensure that library staff and library users can browse and copy digital information in much the same way as they read and copy small amounts of print information without payment to copyright owners. Copyright owners will continue to use new technology to expand their revenue streams. The Association does not, therefore, believe that limited free access to digital information will harm the economic interests of copyright owners.

Definition of library
ALIA strongly supports the committee's recommendation to remove the definition of 'library' from the Copyright Amendment (Digital Agenda) Bill 1999 pending further consultation with affected parties and consideration of the Copyright Law Review Committee's report on the simplification of the Copyright Act 1968 (Refer to Recommendation 2 of the advisory report).

It is critical that Members and Senators are fully informed about the implications of this important change to the Copyright Act. The definition of library represents a significant change to our present copyright legislation. Both corporate and publicly funded libraries have expressed great concern about the likely impact of this change on valuable resource sharing arrangements between libraries and community access to highly specialised private sector collections. ALIA, therefore, urges you to accept the committee's recommendation.

First digitisation right
The Association is concerned about the committee's recommendation to introduce a new exclusive right allowing copyright owners to control the conversion of print resources into digital formats (Refer to Recommendation 1 of the advisory report). This recommendation also cuts back on the range of free copying exceptions available to library users and library users for this type of copying. If implemented, this recommendation will remove fair dealing for research or study purposes as a legitimate exception to copyright infringement. It will only permit libraries to make digital copies from print materials for preservation type purposes and for supply to library users living in remote areas without access to normal postal services. Libraries provide fast and affordable information access to all sectors of the community. This recommendation will mean that libraries will not be able to supply digital copies of print resources to many of their clients without gaining permission from the copyright owner. Libraries will need to either restrict the range of services to library users or take out voluntary licences in order to make digital copies of print resources and pass on any copyright fees to their users.

The Association believes that the fair dealing rights of all library users and the rights of libraries to provide limited access to digital information must be royalty free in the digital environment. The Association therefore urges you to reject Recommendation 1 of the advisory report.

Temporary copies
The committee has recommended that the Digital Agenda Bill be amended to remove the statutory provisions which exempt temporary copies made as part of the technical process of transmitting material from copyright infringement (Refer to Recommendations 35). Temporary copies are made during the course of every electronic communication such as browsing, caching, transmitting material by email and using electronic equipment such as digital copiers and portable CD players. If the committee's recommendation is adopted in this legislation, copyright owners may demand copyright fees for every unauthorised temporary copy and may also take out injunctions to prevent the communication of unlicensed temporary copies. The Association strongly opposes the committee's recommendations and is seeking your support for an amendment to the Digital Agenda Bill to exclude all temporary copies from the reproduction right.

Circumvention devices
Libraries strongly support the use of devices to circumvent technological protection measures such as encryption to access electronic material for all non infringing purposes such as fair dealing for research or study and library copying. The Digital Agenda Bill implements our international obligations under the WIPO Copyright Treaty and Performances and Phonograms Treaty by not banning the use of these devices but by tightly regulating their supply and manufacture for certain prescribed purposes. The Bill imposes heavy penalties for devices which are made and supplied for a non prescribed purpose. The Association generally supports these restrictions in the Bill but recommends that the list of prescribed purposes be expanded to apply to all non infringing purposes including fair dealing for research or study purposes and, as recommended by the committee in its advisory report, library copying for preservation purposes (Refer to Recommendation 18).

Technological measures such as encryption are being used by copyright owners to lock up material in the digital world so that it cannot be read and used for a purpose which does not infringe copyright such as research or study without payment to the copyright owner. Library users must be able to read and use digital material subject to the same free copying exceptions which currently apply to print information. Libraries simply want to be able to use new technology to provide the same range of services to the same user groups.

The library sector strongly refutes suggestions that Australia will become a hacker's haven if the Copyright Act is amended to allow circumvention devices to be used for legitimate, non infringing purposes such as research and study. Without these important statutory provisions, Australia will be well on its way to a pay per view system of distributing digital information.

Contracts
Contracts continue to be used by copyright owners to control material on their own terms and sometimes without regard to the exceptions to copyright infringement as set out the Copyright Act. This disturbing trend will continue at the expense of copyright consumers, including libraries, who in many cases have little choice but to pay licence fees in return for tightly restricted access.

ALIA is seeking your support for legislation to amend the Copyright Act to ensure that fair dealing and other public interest exceptions to copyright infringement cannot be waived by contractual agreements between copyright users and owners.

The Association is seeking your consideration of and support for our position on these issues. The library sector is concerned to ensure that this legislation represents the best outcome for both copyright owners and consumers. We believe that provision must be made for equitable community access to information resources when determining the degree of copyright protection provided to the copyright owner for works in the online environment.

Yours sincerely

Jennefer Nicholson
Executive director