The End of the VCR?: Congress and the World Intellectual Property Foundation

While these two legal “solutions” proposed below do not directly relate to libraries – they may indeed have a significant impact on libraries, especially as compilers and collectors of materials.

Under the WIPO draft treaty, libraries would not be able to record news programs for study and under the INDUCE Act libraries might be liable for the copyright infringement of their users if a technology at the library allows for copyright infringement (copy machine without copyright signs, perhaps?)

INDUCE Act

What do Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, child pornography, your VCR, your iPod, and copyright law have to do with each other? Orrin Hatch thinks that they are related – and therefore has introduced the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act, S. 2560 (an earlier draft was called the Inducement Devolves into Unlawful Child Exploitation Act) to stop peer-to-peer services and related consumer goods.

Presently, VCRs (analog video recorders), TiVos (digital video recorders) and iPods (digital music players) are all legal, though some people do use them in violation of copyright. Under this bill, these technologies and products would likely fall under “inducing copyright violation” and thereby could be illegal.

The legislation seems to be intended to overturn two rulings: a April 2003 ruling by U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson (since appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals) that Grokster and Morpheus, file-swapping services were legal because they "are not significantly different from companies that sell home video recorders or copy machines, both of which can be and are used to infringe copyrights" MGM v Grokster and the Supreme Court’s 1984 Sony v. Universal (Betamax) decision which held that VCRs are legal because they are "capable of substantial noninfringing uses."

A detailed analysis of Orrin Hatch's Statement supporting this legislation can be found here.

WIPO Draft Treaty: No Fair Use Allowed

The World Intellectual Property Organization is considering a new treaty to protect “the rights of broadcasting organizations.” The treaty text attacks the ability of the public to legally make home broadcast recordings -- and will lock in these rights for fifty years per broadcast.

This treaty would severely limit the ability of the public to “fair use,” educational use, and similar rights under the copyright laws of many countries. If the United States became a signatory, it would eliminate the public's ability, since 1984’s Betamax decision, to record broadcasts without the permission of a broadcaster.

This treaty would require signatories to assign to broadcasters:

"the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit the [recording] of their broadcasts";

"the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit the direct or indirect reproduction, in any manner or form, of [recordings] of their broadcasts";

"the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit the retransmission, by wire or wireless means, whether simultaneous or based on [recordings], of their broadcasts";

and the right to control the exhibition and distribution of broadcast recordings.

Also, countries would be expected to change their own laws to correspond to the treaty, similar to NAFTA.

Signatories need “to provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures that are used by broadcasting organizations”.

This treaty has not been adopted by WIPO, but is under serious consideration.

A UK journalist's perspective on this issue can be found here.

Comments

[Ann Bartow]

See above link (http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/i_love_you_madame_librarian/) to read a love letter to librarians!

[Mary Minow]

"copy machine without copyright signs, perhaps?"

well... 17 USC 108(f)(1) specifically states

"Nothing in this section - shall be construed to impose liability for copyright infringement upon a library or archives or its employees for the unsupervised use of reproducing equipment located on its premises: Provided, That such equipment displays a notice that the making of a copy may be subject to the copyright law"