On February 25, 1999, the North Carolina State University Scholarly Communication Subcommittee sponsored a Scholarly Communication Colloquium, "Copyright in the Crosshairs: Who Will Own Your Scholarly Work?" Speaker Arnold Lutzker, an intellectual property attorney, concentrated on the recently enacted Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The provides new rights to owners of works that could endanger the copyright doctrine of fair use. Prue Adler, Assistant Executive Director of the Association of Research Libraries [ARL], addressed the proposed Database Fair Competition and Research Promotion Act of 1999, which could remove databases of facts, information, and government works from the public domain. Admittedly, this copyright legislation is complex and confusing, even for lawyers, so the speakers primarily focussed on how these measures could adversely affect distance education and access to scholarly research materials. For more detailed information, see the following ARL documents:

"Primer on the Digital Millennium: What the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Copyright Term Extension Act Mean for the Library Community," by Arnold P. Lutzker
http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/primer.html

"Federal Relations and Information Policy Program"
http://www.arl.org/info/index.html

"Copyright and Intellectual Property"
http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/copytoc.html

Also see:

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998: U.S. Copyright Office Summary
http://www.loc.gov/copyright/legislation/dmca.pdf (Requires Adobe Reader)

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Links on the Digital Future Coalition Website
http://www.dfc.org/

(CIT INFOBITS - No. 8 Feb 1999)