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 | Pro IP Bill Passes House Committee
A controversial copyright bill introduced in December, 2007, passed unanimously in the House Judiciary Committee last week. Backed by the strong lobbying of the entertainment industry, and opposed by the library community, the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act (PROIPA) is co-sponsored by a long list of legislators including House Judiciary Committee chair John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), Lamar Smith (R-TX), and Howard Berman (D-CA), chair of the Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet and Intellectual Property.
If passed, PROIPA would enact sweeping reforms to copyright and patent enforcement, including raising statutory damage levels and lowering the bar for handing out prison terms in copyright offenses. The most ambitious aspect of the bill, however, is the creation of a new federal position called the White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Representative (WHIPER), to be filled by a presidential appointment. In addition, the U.S. Justice Department would establish an “Intellectual Property Enforcement Division” for IP-related matters. In introducing the bill last year, legislators repeated claims by the entertainment industry that “piracy costs the United States between $200 and $250 billion annually in lost sales, and 750,000 jobs.”
The Judiciary Committee vote is the first step for the bill, but observers noted that election year politics will likely limit further legislative efforts. If the bill fails to pass both chambers before the end of this year, lawmakers will have to start anew on moving the bill in 2009.
Although heavily supported by the entertainment industry—including the Association of American Publishers (AAP), the bill faces significant opposition from many of the nation’s intellectual property scholars, as well as the technology sector and the library community. “Just eight years ago, Congress increased the maximum levels of statutory damages by 50 percent,” noted Douglas Newcomb, chief policy officer for the SLA (Special Libraries Association), in a letter to Congress sent on behalf of the Library Copyright Alliance (LCA). “We believe that a further increase at this time is completely unwarranted. Rather, [Congress] should be exploring whether to limit statutory damages.” The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), concurred with Newcomb. “We are not aware of any instance where the existing statutory damages framework did not sufficiently compensate a rightsholder,” it wrote to lawmakers.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) joined in that assessment. “People who reasonably believe that what they are doing is a fair use,” EFF officials blogged, “shouldn’t face ruinous liability if a court doesn’t agree with them. Similarly, the thousands of music fans arbitrarily singled out for file sharing shouldn’t have to risk their homes just to have their day in court. And, of course, technology companies shouldn’t be put out of business just because their multi-purpose products are misused by their customers.”
AAP’s Pat Schroeder, however, joined with representatives from the recording and motion picture industries in praising the bill at its introduction in December, 2007. “American jobs and America’s competitive edge depend on our ability to protect our creative resources,” she said. "This legislation goes a long way in strengthening that protection.”
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Georgia State U. Names New Dean of Libraries
There was news out of Georgia State University (GSU) this week—but not related to the controversial lawsuit filed by publishers over GSU’s electronic course content and e-reserve policies—at least not directly. On May 1, GSU provost Ron Henry named University of Iowa’s Nancy Seamans as GSU’s new dean of libraries, effective August 4. Seamans will replace Charlene Hurt, who will retire after 11 years at the helm. In a statement, Henry lauded both the GSU libraries’ advances under Hurt’s leadership and Seamans, whom he called “a dean of vision to take the library into the future.”
The announcement comes just weeks after the recent lawsuit filed by publishers, but Hurt’s retirement (and Seamans’ appointment) are completely unrelated to the suit, Hurt stressed to the LJ Academic Newswire. A search committee had been working since last October, when Hurt announced her intention to retire following completion of a $23 million renovation of the GSU library. “I am grateful that I had the opportunity to give [GSU’s students] a learning space they enjoy using and showing to their friends and family,” Hurt noted, on seeing the project through. “I think it’s time for the rest of my life to begin.” Hurt also praised GSU’s choice of successor, noting that Seamans brings with her “an excellent record and excellent credentials at wonderful institutions.”
For Hurt, the GSU renovation project is indeed going out on a high note—a major project that transformed “an out-of-date facility into a 21st century library,” as she described it, complete with state-of-the-art technology and a new learning commons. Construction, she added, was significantly funded by students through a fee they approved in a vote.
Seamans comes to GSU having worked at several different kinds of libraries—academic, health sciences, corporate, and public. Before becoming associate university librarian at the U. of Iowa in 2005, she was director of instruction, reference, and outreach at the Virginia Tech libraries. She said it was “wonderful to come to an institution where the facility is already in great shape,” in a statement. “Instead, we can focus more attention on services—trying to be even more integrated into classes and looking for opportunities to do more outreach to faculty and students.”
Barring a quick settlement, however, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) may have a “welcome” bouquet of legal papers waiting for Seamans at GSU. Publishers, backed by the AAP, accuse GSU of “pervasive, flagrant, and ongoing unauthorized distribution of copyrighted materials” via its electronic course content services. Because of state sovereign immunity issues, Hurt, as dean of libraries, was named as a defendant in the suit, which seeks injunctive relief but not monetary damages. University officials have yet to comment on the suit.
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| Alire Elected ALA President
Camila Alire, dean emeritus of the libraries of both the University of New Mexico and Colorado State University, has been elected 2009–10 American Library Association (ALA) president with 8,956 votes, or 55.8% of the total. Alire defeated J. Linda Williams, coordinator of library media services for Anne Arundel County public schools in Annapolis, MD, who tallied 7,102 votes. Alire will become president-elect at the ALA annual conference next month, and will take the top spot the following year. In an interview in LJ in April, Alire stressed advocacy training for librarians "back home," among other things she supports.
In addition to Alire’s victory, ALA members also elected 34 Councilors-at-Large who will serve from 2008-2011 and one who will serve from 2008-2009. The winners are: Nancy H. Allen, Monika J. Antonelli, Kathleen E. Bethel, Mary Biblo, Christopher F. Bowen, Diedre (Dee) Conkling, Trevor A. Dawes, Aaron W. Dobbs, Linda Friel, Carrie Gardner, Barbara A. Genco, Susan F. Gregory, Dolores (Dee) Gwaltney, Marilyn L. Hinshaw, Carol Ann Hughes, Ling Hwey Jeng, Wei Jeng-Chu, Margaret L. Kirkpatrick, Bonnie L. Kunzel, Stephen L. Matthews, Toni Negro, June A. Pinnell-Stephens, Linda Shippert, Sally Decker Smith, Carla J. Stoffle, Barbara Stripling, Julie Su, Eric D. Suess, John F. Szabo, Theresa A. Tobin, Linda J. Underwood, Lisa Von Drasek, Ann Carlson Weeks, and Courtney L. Young.
The top vote-getters were Stripling, director of library services for the New York City Department of Education; Stoffle, dean of the University of Arizona Library; and Kunzel, a youth services and adolescent literacy consultant in Germantown, TN. Dobbs will serve only one year.
Of the 59,141 members eligible to vote, 17,089 cast ballots (28.9 percent), including 15,655 electronic (32.52 percent) and 1,434 paper (13.04 percent). That's up from last year when, of 55,775 eligible members, 15,031 voted (26.95 percent), breaking down to 13,373 electronic (30.22 percent) and 1,658 paper ballots (14.39 percent). ALA's Mary Ghikas said that before electronic voting began in 2004, only 9,844 members voted in the 2003 election, a mere 17.7 percent of eligible voters. This year's turnout was the highest since 1991, when 28 percent of membership cast ballots. Ghikas reported that several elections between 1970 (39 percent) and 1990 brought out more than 30 percent of members.
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| ACRL’s College & Research Libraries Goes OA
The bi-monthly scholarly journal of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), College & Research Libraries (C&RL), announced this week that has launched a revised, “open access, pre-publication service for accepted articles.” The pre-print service, which actually debuted in March 2008, will make C&RL pre-print articles freely available on the ACRL web site. ACRL’s announcement amends the organizations’ first attempt to launch its pre-print service in March, which made C&RL pre-prints available only to ACRL members, drawing criticism from observers that it was a mixed message on open access. ACRL executive director Mary Ellen Davis said the decision to offer open access to ACRL pre-prints was rooted in ACRL’s “long-standing concerns for the health of scholarly communication.”
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Library Journal Academic Newswire
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