Resolution Opposing Any Extension to Copyright Term Extension Act
Annual Business Meeting, Orlando, Florida
September 4, 1998
Whereas the U.S. House of Representatives and the
Senate have recently passed bills containing far-reaching changes to the
nation's copyright laws, and
Whereas the two bills, H.R. 2281 and S. 2037, while
both named the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, differ substantially
in content and hence will need to be reconciled, and
Whereas, reports have appeared suggesting that Congress
may, in reconciling the two bills, introduce into the reconciled bills
provisions not found in either H.R. 2281 or S. 2037, including one that
would lengthen the term of copyright by 20 years, and
Whereas, the courts have maintained that fair use
of unpublished material is very limited, constraining the uses to which
unpublished materials can be put, and
Whereas, no unpublished material has entered the
public domain since the passage of the last copyright bill over 20 years
ago, and the proposed extension would ensure that much of the unpublished
historical material record would remain under copyright until well into
the next century and
Whereas, the interests of the general public would
be better served not by copyright term extension but by the entrance of
unpublished materials into the public domain, and
Whereas, provisions that would protect fair use,
even to the limited extent it applies to unpublished material, are found
in H.R. 2281 and S. 2037, and
Whereas, H.R. 2281 contains provisions regarding
databases of facts and public domain information that may actually restrict
access to public information,
Now therefore it be resolved that the membership
of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) meeting in Orlando, Florida
at its 62nd Annual Meeting, reaffirms its opposition to any extension
of copyright term for unpublished material and urges members of the U.S.
House and Senate to reject any effort to extend the term of copyright,
and
Be it further resolved that SAA urges the U.S. Congress
to adopt the fair use provisions in
H.R. 2281 which strike a more reasonable balance between
the interests of the content owners and information consumers.
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