FEDERAL REPORT ON DIGITAL COPYRIGHT LAW - A recent US Copyright Office
report recommends against revising copyright law to assure that libraries and consumers can
lend and archive software and other electronic material they purchase. The Copyright Office
is required to issue the report to Congress so that lawmakers can decide whether there are
holes or flaws in the digital-copyright law that need to be fixed. The report concludes that the
1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which updated copyright law for a digital environment, has not significantly undermined what is known as the first-sale doctrine. The doctrine
allows purchasers of books, CDs and software to give them away or sell them. The Copyright
Office report recommended revising the digital-copyright law to ensure that temporary "buffer"
files made while broadcasting videos or music on the Internet should be exempt from
infringement liability and extra royalty fees. The office also advised that the law be clarified to
say that back-up copies of electronic data are prohibited from distribution under the first-sale
doctrine. (Syllabus-News, Resources and Trends, 4 Sept 01. See the Syllabus Web site at:
http://www.syllabus.com/)

PRESIDENT'S INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ADVISORY COMMITTEE TO MEET -
The President's Information Technology Advisory Committee, formerly the Presidential
Advisory Committee on High Performance Computing and Communications, Information
Technology and the Next Generation Internet, will meet in Arlington, VA the week of Sept 24
at the National Science Foundation. The agenda includes reports from the Committee's
discovery/review subcommittees on scalable information infrastructure, high-end computing,
software, socioeconomic and workforce issues. For further information, visit the National
Coordination Office for Computing, Information and Communications at: http://www.itrd.gov
(Syllabus e-News, Resources and Trends,18 Sept 18 01. See the Syllabus Web site at:
http://www.syllabus.com/)