For immediate release:
February 24, 2012
For more information, contact:
Jonathan Band
policybandwidth
202-296-2296
jband@policybandwidth.com
Washington, DC—The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) has released "A New Day for Website Archiving 2.0," an updated analysis by copyright expert Jonathan Band of the legal arguments available to support website archiving by research libraries.
Many research libraries are interested in collecting webpages as part of their mission to collect and preserve cultural artifacts to support scholarship and teaching, and several important projects are already under way. Most websites contain copyrighted works and may themselves be subject to copyright, so research libraries interested in collecting these materials will need to consider whether and how their projects can be carried out within the law. Asking permission to copy websites is often difficult or impossible, so the doctrine of fair use, which allows copying without permission, will play an essential role in justifying these practices.
Band's analysis focuses on the fair use doctrine and takes account of key developments in the case law, as well as a very helpful memo by the US Patent and Trademark Office, and the recent release of the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries. In his original 2006 analysis, Band argued that website archiving by libraries was strongly supported by fair use. The updated analysis concludes that the arguments in support of this practice have only gotten stronger, as practice in this area has gone unchallenged for six years, and the courts continue to endorse a progressive interpretation of fair use.
Download a PDF of the analysis.
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 126 research libraries in the US and Canada. Its mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, facilitating the emergence of new roles for research libraries, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the web at http://www.arl.org/.