Digital Preservation: "ARL and ALA File Comments Regarding Federal Protection for Pre-1972 Sound Recordings"

You Can Access All of ALA’s and ARL’s Comments in This 7 page Document (PDF)

From the Document:

The Association of Research Libraries and the American Library Association appreciate this opportunity to provide reply comments on the important question of the desirability of bringing under federal protection sound recordings fixed before February 15, 1972 (“federalization”). We appreciate the concerns raised by comments in favor of federalization; the seeming variety of state laws and uncertainty in the library community about the availability and scope of exceptions under state law are clearly deterring important preservation and access activities at libraries around the country. While federalization is one response to these concerns, we believe such a change would create significant additional challenges for libraries, which we discuss below. We also believe that the Copyright Office could do significant good for the library community by simply confirming the availability of a flexible fair use doctrine under state law in all 50 states.

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Associations and Organizations, Digital Preservation, Libraries, News, Preservation